The 2025 Sabah State Election

Regional Consolidation or Another Cycle of Fragmentation?

Arnold Puyok

• Publisher: ISEAS
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9789815361544
• Subtopic: Political Campaigns & Elections
• Index: Politics & International Relations

As the incumbent state government and a component of the Unity Government at the federal level, Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) entered the Sabah state election with institutional and organizational advantages. These set the terms of electoral competition and influenced how both GRS and its challengers approached the campaign. Although GRS emerged as the largest bloc in the state assembly, its win of 29 of the 55 seats it contested represented a decline from its 38-seat victory in 2020 and did not translate into broad-based support or a dominant mandate. It fell well short of the level of political consolidation achieved by Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) in Sarawak. GRS's electoral success was defensive rather than expansive; its victory was driven primarily by incumbency advantages, opposition vote-splitting and the personal appeal of individual candidates rather than consolidated local power. Electoral outcomes varied across constituency types—Muslim bumiputera, non-Muslim bumiputera and ethnically mixed seats—with no coalition achieving cross-cutting dominance. GRS performed relatively better in Muslim bumiputera-majority constituencies, Warisan remained competitive in East Coast areas and urban mixed constituencies, while contests in non-Muslim bumiputera seats were the most fragmented, with victories split among five parties or coalitions. This pattern further limited the emergence of a unified state-level mandate. PH under Anwar Ibrahim made limited electoral inroads in Sabah despite federal incumbency, winning just one seat of the twenty-two it contested. The coalition remained weak across most constituencies, reinforcing perceptions of PH as a Peninsula-based actor with weak local anchoring and organizational reach in Sabah politics. The proliferation of local-based parties championing "Sabah First" turned the narrative to a ubiquitous slogan and weakened its electoral appeal. Competing claims to represent Sabah's interests diluted mobilization and redirected voter attention from autonomy rhetoric towards perceived delivery capacity. State-federal relations are therefore likely to remain fundamentally transactional. In the absence of a cohesive and strong state-level mandate, autonomy demands are pursued through negotiation, bargaining and political accommodation rather than an institutionalized and rights-based arrangement.

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Executive Summary
• The 2025 Sabah State Election: Regional Consolidation or Another Cycle of Fragmentation?
• References
• Appendices