By Third Eyed Raven (Majangkim Office)
Kota Kinabalu (Formerly known as Jesselton Town)
KOTA KINABALU: The Bridge They Thought They Controlled
The Twins are not a fortress. They are a crossing—a bridge over a river, strategically placed between warring kingdoms, valuable only for as long as both sides need to cross.
That has always been UPKO’s place in Sabah politics: the bridge party. In the theater of Sabahan politics, no analogy captures this precarious positioning better than House Frey of the Riverlands—the Lords of the Crossing, whose loyalty was always, ultimately, for sale.
But bridges are dangerous places to stand when the river rises.
The Original Betrayal: The 2022 State Election
The Red Wedding did not begin at Kaamatan 2026. It began in the counting halls of September 2022.
That was the Sabah State Election.
Warisan+PH won the most seats. GRS trailed behind. By every democratic principle, the coalition led by Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal deserved the first crack at forming government.
But UPKO held the knife.
UPKO—which had campaigned alongside Warisan and PH, which had promised its voters it would never kneel to GRS—flipped the switch. They crossed the floor. They threw their support to Hajiji Noor and GRS, handing the Chief Minister’s chair to the very coalition they had sworn to oppose.
The voters in Penampang, in Tuaran, in the KDM heartland did not forget. They watched their elected representatives betray the mandate they had been given. From that moment, UPKO’s moral authority was a corpse propped up at a feast table.
That was the Red Wedding. Everything since—the exit from PH in 2025, the solo run, the panic realignment to GRS in 2026—is just the bill coming due.
The Kaamatan Handshake That Broke the Bridge
The official narrative of UPKO’s 2026 GRS application speaks of unity and MA63.
But the true catalyst was the sight, during Kaamatan in Keningau, of two rival lords breaking bread together: Datuk Seri Jeffrey Kitingan (STAR) and Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal (Warisan).
For UPKO’s leadership, that merisik (courting) was an existential threat. If STAR and Warisan locked down the interior—if the two most formidable native-based forces outside GRS joined hands—where would UPKO stand? Nowhere. Isolated. Irrelevant.
UPKO did not choose GRS out of alignment. It fled toward GRS, seeking immediate sanctuary to avoid being crushed between a rising local alliance and the looming federal shadow.
The Heraldry: Warisan is Stark, STAR is the Vale
Let the heraldry be recorded clearly for those who understand the language of thrones:
Warisan is House Stark. The north remembers.
Betrayed at the 2022 election when UPKO flipped the switch, wounded but unbowed, holding the old alliances and the old loyalties.
Their wolves are not dead. They have only been howling in the dark, waiting for winter.
STAR is the Vale. House Arryn of the Eyrie, watching from the highlands of Keningau, Tambunan, and the interior.
Jeffrey Kitingan does not bleed in every skirmish. But when the moment is right—when the betrayers have exhausted themselves—the Knights of the Vale ride down from the mountains and break the field.
The Freys (UPKO) believe they have escaped justice by crawling under the GRS umbrella.
They do not see what stands on either side of their precious bridge.
On one side: the Starks, who have not forgotten the knife.
On the other side: the Vale, who have been watching every move from the heights.
The June 18 Guillotine
GRS is expected to decide on UPKO’s membership application on June 18.
That date is not a milestone. It is a guillotine.
If GRS accepts UPKO, the Freys become junior members of a crowded umbrella—five other parties already inside.
What does UPKO bring that is not already there?
Its KDMR base is valuable, but STAR and PBS also claim that ground. Its parliamentary seats—Penampang and Tuaran—are assets, but they are also vulnerabilities in a coalition where UPKO will be outnumbered and outranked.
If GRS delays or rejects UPKO, the Freys will be left completely exposed.
Marooned on shaky ground, they will have no crossing to guard and no army to serve.
Either way, UPKO has surrendered its leverage. In asking to join GRS, UPKO admitted it cannot stand alone. And in the game of thrones, the moment you admit weakness, you have already lost.
The Expulsion That Foretold the Fall
To understand where UPKO is going, look at where it has been.
In November 2025, UPKO exited Pakatan Harapan, citing “gaps” on Sabah’s 40% revenue rights. It was a principled stand—or so it appeared.
Datuk Ewon Benedick resigned as a federal minister. UPKO announced it would contest the 2025 Sabah state election solo.
But boldness without a fortress is just a longer run toward the enemy.
In the 2025 Sabah election, UPKO fielded 23 candidates and won only three seats. GRS won 29. Warisan won 25.
The KDMR heartland fractured into multi-cornered chaos. By December 2025, UPKO had abandoned its solo stance and pledged support to GRS.
The party that had left PH to stand alone had, within weeks, run straight into the arms of the ruling coalition.
This is not realignment. This is whiplash. This is a house that has forgotten how to stand.
The Winter of GE16
The Peninsular opposition is already devouring itself. PAS has terminated cooperation with Bersatu.
The multi-cornered slaughter is unfolding exactly as predicted.
Pakatan Harapan in Sabah is abandoning its own logo to contest under GRS—a total capitulation of federal branding.
In this environment, the only stable ground is the ground you build yourself. The true Borneo Fortress is quietly taking shape in the war tents of Warisan and STAR.
They are not running toward federal shelters. They are digging their own foundations in Sabah’s soil.
UPKO has done the opposite. It has run away from its own soil, seeking shelter under a GRS umbrella that is itself becoming a patchwork of federal refugees.
The Norh Remmembers
The Red Wedding was 2022. The reckoning is GE16.
The Freys did not become traitors at the Red Wedding.
They were traitors the moment they plotted it. And UPKO was a traitor the moment they flipped the switch in 2022.
When the Knights of the Vale ride in tandem with the wolves of the north, there is no bridge high enough, no Lannister gold deep enough, no GRS umbrella wide enough to save a house built on betrayal.
The Norh Remmembers. And winter will come to House Frey.
