KOTA KINABALU: Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor has expressed his desire to maintain the current partnership between Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) and Pakatan Harapan going into the next state election.

Amid calls from GRS components for the coalition to contest all the 73 state seats available, the Chief Minister and GRS chairman said, however, that the present GRS-Pakatan Plus state government was accepted by the people.

He expressed confidence that the GRS-Pakatan Plus formula would enable them to retain the helm of the state government after the upcoming 17th Sabah state election.

He said the alliance has the strength to continue serving the people and push the development of the state to a better level.

“I know the strength of our party, InsyaAllah, we will be together with Pakatan, and we will continue to be the government after the election,” Hajiji said on Sunday (Sept 1).

“The people want change and for the GRS-Pakatan Plus to continue governing the state,” he added, when opening the Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah (Gagasan Rakyat) Usukan division annual general meeting in the northern Kota Belud district.

His speech comes at the back of a call by GRS component United Sabah National Organisation (Usno) president Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia for parties from the peninsula not to contest in the next state election.

The former Dewan Rakyat speaker contended that three of the eight GRS component parties favoured going all in for the 73 state seats up for grabs in the polls.

According to Pandikar, these parties besides Usno were the Sabah Progressive Party led by Datuk Seri Yong Teck Lee and Sabah STAR led by Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan, claiming all did not want peninsula-based parties to contest in the election.

Besides Usno, Sabah STAR and SAPP, GRS is made up of Gagasan Rakyat which is the anchor party, Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), Parti Harapan Rakyat Sabah (Harapan Rakyat), Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Parti Cinta Sabah (PCS).

Hajiji, who is also the Gagasan Rakyat president, said there were many points to consider in facing the upcoming election, including the interests of friendly parties in GRS as well as the federal unity government.

He said this was an important condition to ensure they remained as the government besides further strengthening Gagasan Rakyat as the GRS backbone.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister also reiterated the state government’s stand on the importance to have good relations with the Federal Government.

“In politics, the state government must ‘ngam’ (fit) and work closely with the Federal Government. This is important because we must know from history, what happens when the state government does not cooperate with the federal government.

“We should not be too racial, too provincial or too local. People talk about a borderless world, while we are talking about our state and not about the country.

“So, we need to be adept in politics; we cannot be at odds with the Federal Government,” Hajiji said.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/09/01/hajiji-prefers-grs-pakatan-plus-formula-for-sabah-election