Instead of defending the citizens who saved his political life, he throws himself into the gutter of appeasement — debasing his office to placate the loudest, most uncompromising ultranationalist factions who openly despise him. He bends, breaks, and contorts himself in a futile attempt to gain their approval, all while they spit back his concessions with contempt.
And as if betraying his own base were not catastrophic enough, he performs an even darker inversion of duty: he gives more attention, more passion, and more political capital to distant foreign causes and movements — simply because they share his ideological affinity — than he gives to the very citizens who keep this country functioning. He champions struggles abroad while ignoring the quiet erosion at home, treating loyal Malaysians as expendable while elevating foreign figures to symbolic sainthood.
Yet his most unforgivable act is the slow, deliberate destruction of the sole coalition partner strong enough to anchor him. A party with more MPs, more organisation, and more discipline than his own — gutted by his paranoia, undermined by his insecurity, and sacrificed on the altar of his relentless quest to impress those who will never stand with him. He weakens the only force keeping the government upright, leaving behind a coalition limping on bones he has personally shattered.
What remains is political devastation: supporters cast aside, allies dismantled, stability poisoned at its source. This is not mere incompetence. It is apocalyptic self-sabotage — a leader who burns his own foundation, worships at the feet of those who scorn him, and pours the nation’s goodwill into foreign fires while his own house collapses around him.
Taxing Our Children’s Future”: How the SST on International School Fees Delivered DAP a Historic Wipeout in Sabah – and Why Peninsular Malaysia Could Be Next*
Kuala Lumpur, 30 November 2025 – Yesterday, Sabah voters delivered the Democratic Action Party its worst electoral disaster in decades: a total wipeout. From six seats in 2020, DAP crashed to zero. Long-held Chinese-majority strongholds such as Elopura, Likas, Kapayan and Luyang fell like dominoes, mostly to Warisan candidates who were political unknowns just months ago.
The scale of the rejection stunned even seasoned observers. Yet when you speak to Chinese parents in Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan – the very communities that once formed DAP’s bedrock – one grievance rises above all others: the federal government’s decision to impose a 6% Sales and Service Tax (SST) on private and international school fees exceeding RM60,000 per year, effective 1 July 2025.
For Malaysia’s Chinese community, education is not a commodity; it is a sacred covenant between generations. To levy a tax on knowledge – especially on the very international schools that many middle- and upper-middle-class families turned to after decades of restricted access to quality public education – is seen as nothing less than a betrayal of that covenant.
“First they limit places in public universities, then they underfund Chinese-medium schools, and now they tax the only remaining pathway we have for our children,” said a parent from Luyang who declined to be named. “DAP promised to be different. Instead they sat silently while Putrajaya taxed our future.”
The numbers are stark. At the average international school in Sabah or the Klang Valley, fees range from RM80,000 to RM150,000 a year. The new SST adds between RM4,800 and RM9,000 per child annually – a sum that hits hardest the salaried professionals, business owners and civil servants who form the backbone of DAP’s urban support.
