United Sabah Party

The United Sabah Party (; abbrev: PBS), formerly the United Sabah Movement (), is a political party of Sabah. The PBS was founded by Joseph Pairin Kitingan in 1985 and it is Sabah's oldest local party. PBS is also the one of eight major component parties that formed the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), a Sabah-based official political coalition since 2022.

Since 2022, the PBS acts as an allied partner, providing confidence and supply to the ruling federal Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition as part of GRS. PBS is a major component of the Sabah-based Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) state governing alliance since 2022.

History

PBS was registered as a political party on 5 March 1985. Its founding president Joseph Pairin Kitingan had broken away from the ruling Parti Bersatu Rakyat Jelata Sabah (BERJAYA) because of his differences with the Chief Minister of Sabah and party president, Harris Salleh, whose state cabinet Pairin had served in. BERJAYA itself had ousted the previous state government of United Sabah National Organisation (USNO) to govern Sabah for 8 years from 1976 to 1985.

PBS later formed the state government after winning the 1985 state elections. Following the 1986 Sabah riots, which occurred after PBS' victory in the 1986 state election, PBS joined the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition and governed Sabah from 1985 to 1994. However, on the eve of the 1990 state elections, PBS pulled out of BN to join the Gagasan Rakyat (GR) coalition and won the state election for a third time. It also won the 1994 state elections by a narrow margin. The subsequent administration was short-lived as defectors switched their allegiance to BN, resulting in Pairin's resignation. PBS subsequently rejoined the BN coalition in 2002.

Following the fall of both federal and state BN governments in the 2018 general election (GE14), PBS left the coalition and formed a new Sabah-based informal coalition of parties known as the United Alliance or "Gabungan Bersatu". During the , PBS provided confidence and supply to Perikatan Nasional (PN) and prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin. The party joined the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) or "Sabah People's Alliance" just before the 2020 Sabah state election which was won eventually by GRS.

Ideology and support base

Although it is mainly seen as an ethnically-based Kadazan-Dusun political party, PBS calls itself a "Malaysian multi-racial political party". Members are mostly of Kadazan-Dusun (from both the Dusunic plus Paitanic ethnolinguistic groups) and Murut (including the Lundayeh subgroup) ethnic descent, though the second and third largest ethnic membership are mostly Muslim Bumiputeras, mostly ethnic local Sabahan based ethnic Malays (Bruneian Malays and Cocos Malays), and also from the Bajau community of peoples (the second-largest ethnic Bumiputera in the state including the Iranun subgroup and some Suluk together with the Chinese, alongside those of mixed-race or Sino-Native subgroup of the Chinese minority). Its declared political mission is to strive to safeguard Sabah's autonomy and state rights, promoting democratic principles, economic advancement, human rights and a fair justice system. It also seeks preserving the traditional culture of each race in Sabah and freedom of religion in Malaysia.

Among the most vocal issues voiced by the party were the issue of illegal immigrants along with '<nowiki/>ghost voters in Sabah, the issue of the IC Project in East Malaysia, unbalanced development and the 20 points of the Malaysian Agreement 1963 for Sabah's entry into Malaysia.

• Sabah (1985–1994, 2004–2018, 2020–present)

Note: bold as Menteri Besar/Chief Minister, italic as junior partner