AMID the looming Sabah state election, Warisan president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal is reaching for his old playbook.
Once again, he is promising to cancel student loans, hand out free education and restructure Yayasan Sabah into some kind of financial utopia.
To the untrained eye, this might sound fresh and inspiring. To Sabahans who remember 2018 to 2020 when he was the chief minister, it’s bull excrement.
The proposal to abolish PTPTN (National Higher Education Fund Corporation) and Yayasan Sabah loans is not new. In fact, it’s almost a word-for-word re-run of what Shafie uttered back when Warisan was in power.
The only thing missing is an admission that he had two full years to deliver on these promises but somehow never fulfilled his promise.
What happened between 2018 and 2020?
Let’s be clear. Shafie was not just a regular Sabah state assemblyman during that period. As chief minister he could have picked up the phone to call Yayasan Sabah and said, “Let’s wipe out these loans”.
But no such call came. There were no sweeping reforms. No cancelled loans. No full scholarships. Not even a symbolic RM100 rebate.
Now, with the state election clock ticking, are we supposed to believe that it will be different this time around?
That this time, once he’s back in power, he will finally deliver the things he conveniently “forgot” to do the last time? Sabahans aren’t naïve. They remember campaign theatre when they see it.
GRS is doing all the work
While Warisan replays old campaign narratives like a broken record, the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS)-led state government under Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor has quietly focused on delivering results. No fireworks, no drama – just policies that matter.
Take the Higher Education Registration Assistance Fund for B40 students. Or the expansion of the Sabah Maju Jaya Scholarship.
Or the increased allocations to Yayasan Sabah for real, functioning scholarships – not just promises at media conferences. Add to that the re-development of rural schools and targeted aid for out-of-state Sabahan students, one can expect to have a record that speaks louder than slogans.
This isn’t about who can shout the loudest during campaign season. It’s about who did the work when the cameras were off.
Sabahans deserve better than campaign nostalgia
It’s easy to make big promises when you’re not the one holding the cheque book. But leadership is about doing, not dreaming.
Shafie had his chance. He didn’t abolish any loans. He didn’t offer sweeping scholarships. He didn’t transform Yayasan Sabah.
Now he returns with the same promises he failed to deliver before, hoping that voters have short memories. But Sabahans possess elephant-like memory.
They remember the silence after the speeches. The lack of follow-through. The old wine in a re-cycled bottle.
The choice is not between new and old in the upcoming state polls. It’s between action and nostalgia.
One side is rolling up its sleeves. The other is flipping through an old script, hoping that nobody notices the re-run.
Sabah deserves better than re-runs. It deserves results. – Aug 11, 2025
VOICE OF ASIA Editorial Note
At VOICE OF ASIA, we believe in amplifying the real voices of the people – especially those too often overlooked in national discourse. This article, originally published by Focus Malaysia, highlights a perspective from Sabah that resonates with our editorial mission: to go beyond headlines and politics, and shine a light on what truly matters to everyday Malaysians.
The original version can be found here.
