Sabah state election GRS is returned

Murray Hunter


Sabah state election GRS is returned

More of the same in Sabah politics over the next five years

Nov 30, 2025






With a voter turnout of 64.35 percent, almost 2.0 percent lower than 2020, the Hajiji Noor led Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) was returned. Hajiji Noor was very quickly sworn in as chief minister in the early hours of Sunday morning by the governor Musa Aman before seat winners could has a chance deeply reflect upon the results.

GRS seats decreased from the 38 it held in the last Assembly, to 29 in the new state assembly. Its main competitor Warisan led by Shafie Apdal won 25 seats, two better than in

2020. Although Warisan held its strongholds on the east coast, defeated DAP and PKR in urban areas, the party was not strong enough to win the seats it needed to form a simple majority.

In the interior, Parti Solidarity Tanah Airku (STAR) (2 seats), UPKO (3 seats), and Parti Solidarity Demokratik (KDM) (1 seat) managed to win a few seats. Independents from within the Kadazan-Dusun Murut communities managed to win 5 seats in Bandau, Pintasan, Petegas, Tulid, and Kukusan.

According to reports, the five independents threw their support behand Hajiji’s GRS, along with 3 members of Upko, and one from PKR to give him a two-seat majority in the assembly.

UMNO could only manage to win 5 seats, losing 9 seats. Bersatu lost all of the 11 seats it gained during the 2020 election. The DAP has been completely wiped out, erasing decades of representation in Sabah. PKR was only able to hold Melalap with parachute candidate Jamawi Ja’afar, former UMNO youth chief and Warisan member. PKR was not able to hold on to the Api Api seat in the Kota Kinabalu area, which was won by Warisan. PAS was able to pick up its first seat in the Muslim dominated seat of Karambunai with a slim margin of 395 votes.

Significance for Sabah

What is most interesting about the Sabah state election is that Sabah based parties received 919,340 votes (80.00%), verses the peninsula-based parties which only received 117,522 votes or 10.23%. This is counting UMNO Sabah as a Sabah party, which received 144,389 votes. One could see that corruption issues had little influence on the overall result.

GRS small majority of only a couple of seats could lead to unstable government during this term. However, there are 6 nominated seats with full voting rights that GRS can use to strengthen their position in the assembly.

Significance for peninsula-based parties

It would be naïve to directly equate the results from Sabah to national politics, as local issues were involved. However, there are a few lessons that the national parties must consider coming into the national elections.

1. Bersatu has a leadership problem. The current leadership just didn’t work in the Sabah election.

2. UMNO still hasn’t recovered from its poor performance of 2022 in the last federal election. There is something missing within UMNO and this must be sorted out before Melaka, Johor, and the next federal election.

3. UMNO will have seen that Pakatan Harapan failed to capture the non-Malay vote. This is what UMNO needs and the current assumption of the UMNO-PH link-up must be reconsidered.

4. Both the DAP and PKR have lost a massive proportion of their respective support bases. If the DAP wants to win around 40 seats in the next general election it must drastically change its philosophy and action within the ‘Unity government’. The DAP is being singled out for the perceived failings of the federal government. Likewise, PKR could be crushed in the coming Melaka and Johor state elections and next general election if the party doesn’t heed the warnings from Sabah.

Bersatu, DAP and PKR should be deep in thought about their performances in Sabah and make some changes if they are going to be competitive. Meanwhile in Sabah on Monday its just business as usual again.

Sabah wont be following the footsteps of Sarawak and will still have a government based upon personality and patronage.