Parti Bersatu Sabah

The Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS, or "United Sabah Party") is a political party in Sabah, east Malaysia. It was registered as a political party on March 5 1985. The founding president was Datuk Joseph Pairin Kitingan, who broke away from the ruling Parti Berjaya because of his differences with party president Harris Salleh, the Chief Minister in whose cabinet Pairin served before the break.

Although it is mainly seen as an ethnically-based Kadazan-Dusun political party, PBS calls itself a "Malaysian multi-racial political party". Its declared political mission is to strive to safeguard Sabah's autonomy and states rights, promote democratic principles, economic advancement, human rights, and justice.

PBS formed the state government after winning the 1985 state elections and governed Sabah from 1985 to 1994. Following the 1986 Sabah riots, PBS joined the Barisan Nasional coalition after winning the May 1986 state election.cite web|publisher=Aliran Monthly|url=http://www.aliran.com/oldsite/monthly/2003/7i.html|title=Sabah: All Quiet On The Eastern Front? |author=Lim, G.|accessdate=2008-01-20] However, on the eve of the July 1990 state election, PBS pulled out of the coalition and won the state election for a third time. It also won the 1994 state elections by a narrow margin. However, numerous defections occurred as many PBS representatives switched allegiance to the then opposition Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition before PBS were even able to form a new state government; these politicians were nicknamed "katak", which means frogs in Malay. PBS subsequently rejoined the BN coalition in 2002, ending any form of opposition as BN fully occupied the state legislature and returning Sabah to the rule of the BN coalition that holds the federal parliament.

References

*Chin, James 1994. "Sabah State Election of 1994: End of Kadazan Unity, Asian Survey, Vol. 34, No. 10, pp. 904-915----

External links

* [http://www.pbs-sabah.org Official Parti Bersatu Sabah web site]