After Sabah: Can DAP still stomach risk?

Tuesday, December 9th, 2025


After Sabah: Can DAP still stomach risk?

In 1999, Kit Siang took a major personal risk by contesting in Bukit Bendera. He lost, but the real takeaway was his readiness to venture into uncertainty. The question now is whether the DAP still has leaders willing to be such pioneers (pic: MEDIA MULIA)

Monday, December 8th, 2025 at News | Opinion


WHAT are the lessons for DAP after the comprehensive defeat in Sabah? The party is still nursing its bruises from the state elections, a night where all eight seats it contested slipped through its fingers. A wipeout, plain and simple.

So, let’s rewind the tape. DAP has seen bad nights before. Very bad nights.

“Despite the catastrophic defeat suffered by the DAP in the Nov 29 election…”


So began Tan Sri Lim Kit Siang’s post-mortem in December 1999. The statement was issued 26 years ago to the date.

He went on: “…the DAP decision to work with PAS in the Barisan Alternatif was the correct, proper, honourable and noble one, taking high calculated political risks where the DAP might lose big in the hope of seizing the golden political opportunity of breaking the Barisan Nasional (BN) political hegemony and two-third majority.”

Those were the words of a man who had just been thrashed at the polls. DAP managed only 10 seats, a marginal improvement over general election 1995 (GE1995) but nowhere near the 24 seats in 1986. It was the election where Kit Siang and fellow DAP lion Karpal Singh both fell, victims of a political experiment that paired DAP with PAS, KeADILan and Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) in the Barisan Alternatif.


Kit Siang had described the coalition’s gamble as one that could lead to “unprecedented victor y or unprecedented defeat”. The party got the latter. Hardcore supporters were uneasy with PAS in the same tent; voters agreed. Of course, how voters came to that decision is another story altogether.

Important to remember that back then, the Opposition was not dreaming of forming the federal government. The most ambitious target was to deny BN its sacred two-thirds majority. DAP’s mission, as Kit Siang framed it, was to challenge the racial and religious divide-and-rule architecture and push Malaysia toward a new politics rooted in the

Barisan Alternatif manifesto, “Towards a Just Malaysia”.

But that was the DAP of the old: Pre-power, pre-Penang, pre-Putrajaya.

Fast forward. In 2008, Penang fell to Pakatan Rakyat (PR). His son Lim Guan Eng became chief minister. For the first time, DAP leaders tasted the privilege and burden of governance. In 2018, the unthinkable happened. Pakatan Harapan (PH) won the 14th general election (GE14). DAP joined the federal Cabinet. Guan Eng became finance minister. The party crossed into a new era.

Now, after Sabah’s drubbing, the same question resurfaces: What next?

Hours after the results, Anthony Loke issued the obligatory balm: “We will take heed of this result and conduct a thorough review of our shortcomings, as well as work towards regaining the support of the rakyat in the upcoming elections.”


All fair. All expected. But the deeper questions linger. Should DAP stay the course in the Madani Government? Should it consider striking out alone in the next GE? Does it even have the appetite to think radically anymore?

History offers a clue. After the 1999 beating, DAP rebuilt. Then came the trajectory: Twelve seats in 2004, 28 in 2008, 38 in 2013, 42 in 2018 and 40 in 2022.

But no party wins tomorrow’s elections with yesterday’s instincts. DAP’s old fuel, which once included anti-corruption zeal, institutional reform, judicial independence and media freedom, has thinned under the weight of incumbency. Reform under the Madani Government has been slow and often half-hearted. Allegations of corruption, some uncomfortably close to the centres of power, have further eroded the moral high ground the coalition hoped to maintain.

DAP cannot pretend to be a mere passenger. Being part of the government means sharing the cost.

In 1999, Kit Siang made a bold play. He shifted to Bukit Bendera, Penang, taking a personal risk to break new ground for the party. He wrote then: “As DAP secretary general, I was prepared to personally take such high calculated political risks myself in the hope that it could help in providing the national momentum to achieve a political breakthrough…”

He lost. The lesson, however, was not in the defeat but in the willingness to risk.

Today, the question is sharper. Does DAP still have leaders prepared to become “peneroka”, pioneers in uncertain territory? Or will it cling to the safety of familiar seats and the familiar game plan?

Back then, the DAP leaders did not stand to lose much. There were no federal and state ministerships, no chauffeured cars and no battalions of publicly funded staff. Today, the DAP leaders have tasted power, and the sweet nectar that flows from the office. Power brings comfort. Comfort brings hesitation.

When they first joined the federal government under Prime Minister (PM) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, some DAP leaders were said to be too vocal. In this second stint, they’ve gone almost mute, hardly making their voices heard.

Is that going to continue? Are the DAP leaders willing to risk it all again?

Habhajan Singh is the corporate editor of The Malaysian Reserve