A three-way pact among Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional for the upcoming Sabah state election is unlikely to materialise, says a GRS leader.
Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah vice-president Masiung Banah played down Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s hopes of a pact among the three major coalitions to prevent seat clashes, saying his party would surely disagree with this move.
Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah is one of the eight component parties in GRS.
Masiung said such an alliance could confuse voters, when GRS and PH have already agreed to join forces for the state election, Sinar Harian reported.
“There’s little chance of such a cooperation to be reached. But if it does materialise, we hold to the prime minister’s statement on May 11 that (GRS chairman) Hajiji Noor should lead negotiations on seat allocation,” he said.
The four-term Kuamut assemblyman said GRS and Sabah PH have already formed a solid working partnership, which his party intended to fully stick to.
“GRS has also lost confidence in BN–Umno because they betrayed the partnership they had forged with GRS through the ‘Kinabalu Move’.
“At the same time, BN–Umno has also decided not to work with GRS. We hope the prime minister will respect our stand,” he said.
Yesterday, Anwar said talks were ongoing among BN, GRS and PH to reach an understanding to avoid three-cornered contests in the state election.
The PH chairman and PKR president previously hoped that all three coalitions would be able to work together for the polls.
Hajiji, the Sabah chief minister, announced on July 27 that GRS and PH had agreed to form an alliance for the election. BN chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi also said the coalition’s cooperation with PH in Sabah was “locked in”.
However, as both BN and GRS are not formally working with one another, the two coalitions are expected to clash in the state election, due to be held by the end of the year.
Sabah Umno and GRS used to be allies in the state government, but their partnership collapsed after Sabah Umno chief Bung Moktar Radin tried but failed to unseat Hajiji as chief minister in January 2023, in a move dubbed the “Kinabalu Move”.
