THE Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS)-Barisan Nasional (BN) government has collapsed after Sabah BN chairman Bung Moktar Radin announced his coalition’s decision to pull out of the administration.

Bung revealed the decision tonight after chairing a two-hour meeting at Sabah Umno headquarters in Kota Kinabalu.

BN has 17 assemblymen and the decision brings to an end the 27-month-old Hajiji Noor government.

GRS counts 29 assemblymen among its ranks. These include 15 direct members who were formerly with Bersatu, Parti Bersatu Sabah (seven), Sabah STAR (six) and one from Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP).

Prior to tonight’s announcement the GRS-BN state government held 46 seats in the 79-seat Sabah assembly.

Bung, who is deputy chief minister, said the coalition had lost trust in Hajiji’s leadership and claimed that the chief minister had violated a pact BN had made with Perikatan Nasional (PN) after the state elections in 2020.

“It is clear that he had broken our agreement by sacking Umno Usukan assemblyman Salleh Said Keruak as Qhazanah chairman and threatening us with a reshuffle.

“We have unanimously decided to pull our support for this government and Hajiji as chief minister,” he told the press conference.

Qhazanah Sabah Berhad is a state agency that functions as a catalyst to drive Sabah’s economic development and growth in various sectors.

With this, BN and GRS will now race to cobble together a new coalition to govern the state.

The government had also counted on assemblymen from Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat (KDM), which has three seats, as well as PAS, Parti Bangsa Malaysia, with one assemblyman each, and one Independent, making 53 assemblymen in all.

On the opposition bench, Parti Warisan Sabah has 19 assemblymen, while Sabah Pakatan Harapan has seven: four from DAP, two from PKR and one from Upko.

Earlier today Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had said the political situation in Sabah “looks calm”.

“It looks like the situation is calm now and I don’t think there is any turmoil,” he said when responding to reporters’ questions on the latest situation in the state after performing his Friday prayers in Putrajaya.

He said he had not seen any new political developments and he was also just informed that there were some issues.

Anwar said he had asked Hajiji to discuss it with “our friends in Sabah”. – January 6, 2023.