By Remy Majangkim (Third Eyed Raven)
KOTA KINABALU: The structural map of Sabah politics is shifting. Following Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal’s confirmation that Parti Warisan intends to field candidates across all 26 parliamentary seats for the upcoming 16th General Election (GE16), the prospect of a unified local front alongside Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (STAR) and Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat (KDM) has moved from a quiet theory into the spotlight.
Numerically, the proposal is formidable.
In the last state election, these three distinct local entities captured a combined 416,163 votes, securing 36.9% of the popular vote and 28 seats out of the total 1,128,970 valid votes cast.
This baseline puts them in direct striking distance of the ruling Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) coalition.
Yet, as the three leaderships weigh the structural viability of mimicking the historic Pakatan Harapan (PH) 1.0 “single flag” strategy of 2018, they face a double-pronged assault: an aggressive early narrative war over infrastructure on the outside, and a formidable bureaucratic wall on the inside.
SIDEBAR: THE PACT BY THE NUMBERS
Data baseline based on the total 1,128,970 valid votes cast in the last Sabah State Election.
• Parti Warisan
• Votes Received: 288,703
• State Vote Share: 25.57%
• Seats Won: 25
• Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (STAR)
• Votes Received: 73,410
• State Vote Share: 6.50%
• Seats Won: 2
• Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat (KDM)
• Votes Received: 54,050
• State Vote Share: 4.79%
• Seats Won: 1
• Combined Alliance Total
• Total Votes: 416,163
• Total Vote Share: 36.86%
• Total State Seats Held: 28 / 73
A Stifled Grassroots and the Need for a New Breath
Walk the markets of Inanam, look at the changing landscapes of Keningau, or talk to families in Sandakan, and the sentiment on the ground becomes undeniably clear: the mood among regular citizens has grown deeply stifled.
Decades of fragmented local alliances, volatile political defections, and competing local egos have left the state’s electorate weary of the same repeating political cycles.
There is an awakening realization that despite different party colors, at the end of the day, a Sabahan is a Sabahan. Having tried almost every tactical mutation over the years, from loose coalitions to fragmented multi-cornered fights, the public sentiment is no longer demanding mere political survival; it is demanding a completely new breath of life for local governance.
It is this exact groundswell of emotional exhaustion that the proposed unified front aims to tap into, converting a collective frustration into a singular, undeniable voice.
The RoS Bureaucratic Maze: A Weaponized Delay?
The most immediate operational hurdle to launching a “one flag” campaign lies squarely in the hands of the federal government’s Registrar of Societies (RoS).
For Warisan, STAR, and KDM to legally debut a brand-new, unified coalition logo on the GE16 ballot, the RoS must formally approve their registration as a fresh political entity.
History dictates that this is rarely a smooth process in Malaysian politics.
The opposition remembers all too well how the RoS systematically delayed the formal registrations of both Pakatan Harapan ahead of GE14 and Perikatan Nasional in later cycles.
In a highly charged pre-election environment, the RoS can become a bureaucratic battleground.
Delays in approving a new coalition logo are frequently viewed by opposition pacts as tactical maneuvers by the ruling establishment to deny them legal status until the absolute last minute.
Faced with an uncooperative or slow-moving RoS, the alliance would be forced into a high-stakes choice.
They would either have to abandon the single-flag dream and fall back on separate logos, risking voter confusion, or adopt the daring PH 1.0 blueprint. Under that backup plan, STAR and KDM candidates would have to completely shelve their symbols and officially file their nomination papers under the Warisan banner.
Regional Realities vs. The “Big Brother” Trap
However, relying on the Warisan flag as the default proxy triggers deep internal complexities.
Unlike the national anti-establishment wave that bound PH in 2018, Sabah’s regional politics are intensely localized and ethnically sensitive.
Asking a deeply entrenched interior party like Datuk Seri Jeffrey Kitingan’s STAR or Datuk Peter Anthony’s KDM to run under a Warisan flag risks alienating Kadazan-Dusun-Murut-Rungus (KDMR) grassroots loyalists.
In the interior heartlands, party identity is fiercely guarded.
Forcing these machineries to swallow a Warisan logo could easily be spun by opponents as an absorption rather than an equal partnership, a “big brother” dynamic that Shafie Apdal implicitly acknowledged by emphasizing that any cooperation must be anchored on sincerity and mutual strength rather than domination.
The Kingmaker Stakes: Securing the Borneo Fortress
The operational risks of this alliance are high, but the prize is generational.
Political analysts emphasize that winning 20 to 26 seats in the upcoming GE16 will immediately solidify Sabah’s position as an absolute kingmaker in Malaysian politics.
With Peninsular Malaysia deeply polarized and structurally fractured into a near stalemate, Putrajaya can no longer be won in Kuala Lumpur alone.
If a cohesive local bloc, whether spearheaded by the Warisan-STAR-KDM pact or the incumbent GRS coalition, safeguards and sweeps these 26 seats, federal power completely changes hands.
A clean sweep of this magnitude ensures that no Peninsular coalition can form a federal government without explicitly bending to the demands of the “Borneo Fortress”.
It elevates Sabah from an electoral afterthought into a decisive force capable of dictating constitutional amendments, wealth redistribution, and the literal enforcement of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
The ultimate ambition here is to replicate the “Sarawak Playbook” used so effectively by Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), presenting an unbreakable, unified regional front that national parties cannot divide or conquer.
The Pan Borneo Highway Crossfire
While the parties navigate these structural and bureaucratic minefields, opponents have already launched an aggressive, pre-emptive strike on the ground.
Instead of waiting for the pact to be finalized, critics have weaponized public frustration surrounding the delayed Pan Borneo Highway project to hook Warisan early.
Recent critiques from political opponents, including Sabah DAP publicity secretary Thien Ee Hang, have sought to squarely blame the Warisan administration of 2019 for the ongoing logjams.
The attack pivots on the 2019 recommendation by the Shafie-led state Cabinet to terminate the Project Delivery Partner (PDP) model.
With the recent Auditor-General’s report revealing that only 11.4% of the project’s 35 packages were fully completed as of March 2026, critics have aggressively pushed a narrative connecting Warisan’s past governance directly to the current state of Sabah’s infrastructure.
Warisan’s leadership has aggressively pushed back against what it characterizes as a selective distortion of history. Deputy President Datuk Darell Leiking clarified that while the state recommended the change, the ultimate executive authority rested with the Pakatan Harapan federal Cabinet of the time.
Furthermore, Shafie Apdal has urged critics to actually read the Auditor-General’s report, noting that the systemic delays and implementation shortcomings predated his 2018 tenure.
In Parliament, Shafie turned the tables, demanding that the current government take decisive action to cancel the contracts of underperforming contractors currently handling the highway packages.
GRS Counters the Siege
The ruling GRS government has no intention of letting its fortress walls crumble easily.
Their counter-strategy will likely pivot on highlighting internal contradictions within the new opposition pact, questioning how long an alliance built on historical rivals can last, especially given STAR’s current alignment within the state administration.
Furthermore, GRS will position itself as the “stable development” alternative, arguing that a strong working relationship with the current federal administration ensures a steady pipeline of infrastructure funding, contrasting it against the confrontational stance of a newly forged opposition front.
The Road to GE16
This early friction over the Pan Borneo Highway illustrates exactly what a Warisan-STAR-KDM alliance will face if they pursue a single-flag strategy.
In Sabah’s fragmented political arena, a unified logo creates a single, highly visible target for opponents.
The success of this strategy hinges entirely on the seamless transfer of votes at the grassroots level—whether KDMR voters will pull the lever for Warisan, and vice versa. If they cannot present a seamless, unified defense against infrastructure and immigration narratives, the electoral advantages of combining their collective 416,163 state votes could quickly evaporate.
If the RoS delays or the emotional hurdles of sharing a single flag prove too high, the three parties will likely fall back on a strict, transactional seat-sharing pact.
But if they manage to navigate the current smear campaigns, outmaneuver bureaucratic roadblocks, and successfully deploy a unified branding strategy, the Warisan-STAR-KDM alignment could fundamentally reshape the power dynamics of East Malaysia. The building of a Borneo Fortress.
