By Dato’ Petinggi Andrew Ambrose Atama Katama, President, MOPOT Defender of Ancestral Land Sabah. Member, International League of Peoples’ Struggle (Malaysia)The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) is a global alliance of progressive,anti-imperialist, and democratic organisations.
KOTA KINABALU: For decades, Sabah’s 40% revenue entitlement has been framed as a technical matter — a question of formulas, periodic reviews, and administrative compliance under Malaysia’s Federal Constitution.This framing is convenient.
It is also misleading.The issue is not legal ambiguity. It is political failure.Sabah’s entitlement, grounded in Article 112D, has long been acknowledged in principle.What has been missing is not law, but the sustained political will to enforce it.
The recent Court of Appeal stay, which suspended the High Court’s implementation timeline, did notextinguish Sabah’s right. It merely removed the urgency that had finally begun to compelaction.And that, in essence, is the story of Sabah’s 40%: not defeat, but delay.
A history shaped by accommodation, The roots of this delay can be traced back to the fall of the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS)government in the 1990s.
What followed was not simply a change in administration, but a transformation in Sabah’spolitical character. Under two decades of Barisan Nasional rule, the state’s political elitewere gradually reoriented towards federal alignment.
The language of rights gave way toaccommodation. Demands became requests; obligations became negotiable.Over time:Delay became normal. Subordination became rational.
The long corrective effort Against this tide, Dr Jeffrey Kitingan has played a persistent role in keeping Sabah’sconstitutional position alive.He reframed Sabah not as a dependent state, but as a constitutional partner.
He sustainedMA63 as a political question when others allowed it to fade. And he helped cultivate awider Pan-Borneo political consciousness.Yet the limitation remains clear:Awareness has grown — but power has not aligned with it.Sarawak’s lessonSarawak, under GPS, demonstrates what happens when political elites act as a unifiedstate bloc.Its gains were not rhetorical.
They were structured, negotiated, and enforced throughcohesion.Sarawak aligned its politics with its position. Sabah has not done so consistently.A new moment — or a familiar contradiction?
The upcoming rally signals something new: a parliamentarian-led mobilisation.But it also introduces ambiguity.
To many Sabahans, the question is not whether mobilisation is needed — but who ismobilising, and why now.This ambiguity is sharpened by recent memory.In 2025, student activists near Menara Kinabalu exercised the same right to assembly —and were met with suppression.
Today, political elites call for mobilisation.When youths assemble, it is disruption.When elites assemble, it is democracy.
Unity without transformation Political elites now project unity.But unity alone is not transformation.Sabah still lacks a sustained, people-rooted political front representing the poor, themarginalised, and Indigenous communities.Without the people at its centre, unity risks becoming performance.
The deeper injustice Behind the constitutional debate lies a harder truth.For decades, vast areas of Sabah’s ancestral lands have been taken, converted, and absorbed into large-scale economic systems.This has produced significant national wealth.Yet the people most connected to these lands remain among the poorest.This contradiction defines the 40% issue:Wealth has been extracted.
But itsreturn has not been realised.The failure is not only delay — but the absence of a clear, transparent, and just mechanism to translate that entitlement into real development for the people.The politics of mobilisation and memory. This struggle did not begin today.It was built by:● Indigenous communities defending land● activists demanding justice● students speaking when it was not safeMany of them faced pressure, marginalisation, and silence.Today’s leaders stand at the latest stage of a struggle they did not begin.From Tambunan to New York A Tambunan-based Indigenous organisation, MOPOT, brought the question of MA63compliance into the United Nations Voluntary National Review (VNR) 2025 in New York. A simple question was asked:Has Malaysia fully complied with MA63?The absence of a clear answer speaks for itself.Across bordersThe struggle is now moving beyond Malaysia. Sabah’s diaspora activists in Australia are preparing to bring forward documentation tothe International Criminal Court concerning long-standing structural injustices.Whether such efforts succeed is uncertain.What is not uncertain is this:Sabah’s question is no longer contained.
After the rally, If the rally succeeds, one question remains:What happens next? Will this moment lead to action? Or return to negotiation? Final lineSabah’s struggle was not created in Parliament.It was carried — quietly, persistently — by its Peoples. By those who defended land.By those who spoke without power. By those who endured without recognition.These are the real custodians of Sabah’s rights.Political leaders may amplify the moment.But they did not build it.And if Sabah’s future is to be secured, it will not come from moments of elite unity alone —but from the enduring force of a people who refuse, across generations, to allow what wastaken to remain unreturned.
