2020 Sabah state election

2020 Sabah state election

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All 73 elected seats in the Legislative Assembly 37 seats needed for a majority
Registered	1,124,598
Turnout	66.61%
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Hajiji Noor Shafie Apdal Anifah Aman Party BERSATU Sabah WARISAN PCS Alliance GRS WARISAN+ Alliance with PKAN Leader since 12 September 2020 (2020-09-12) 17 October 2016 (2016-10-17) 26 July 2020 (2020-07-26) Leader's seat Sulaman Senallang Bongawan (lost seat) Last election 40.08%, 26 seats[a] 49.78%, 34 seats[b] 0 seats, 1.07% Seats before 0 Seats won 38 32 0 Seat change 12 2 Popular vote 316,112 317,991 29,118 Percentage 43.22% 43.42% 3.98% Swing 3.14 pp 6.36 pp 2.91 pp
Results by constituency
Chief Minister before election Shafie Apdal WARISAN Elected Chief Minister Hajiji Noor GRS Party

The 2020 Sabah state election took place on 26 September 2020^[1] to elect all 73 elected members of the 16th Sabah State Legislative Assembly. The previous Assembly was dissolved on 30 July 2020.^[2]

The state snap election was called prematurely after a political crisis arose. Both Shafie Apdal, incumbent Chief Minister and leader of Sabah Heritage Party (WARISAN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition government and Musa Aman, leader of Perikatan Nasional (PN) and Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition opposition claimed to have the majority to form the government. However, the Governor of Sabah, Juhar Mahiruddin decided to dissolve the State Legislative Assembly on the advice of Shafie.^[3]

The state election was conducted under the New Normal and special standard operating procedures (SOP) imposed by the Electoral Commission (EC) as the country is still observing the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) due to COVID-19 pandemic.^[4]

Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) coalition won the election with a simple majority of 38 seats. Hajiji Noor from BERSATU–PN was sworn in as Chief Minister 3 days later. The alliance of Perikatan Nasional with 17 seats, Barisan Nasional with 14 seats, and PBS with 7 seats made GRS the biggest electoral coalition in Sabah since September 2020.

This was the first Sabah state election not held on the same day as the Malaysia general election since 1999, when Sabah held its election on March that year as opposed to the general election date in November 1999.

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