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KUDAT: Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) must be willing to collaborate with any party that has considerable public support to create a united and strong Sabah.

GRS Deputy Secretary-General Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali, who is also Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Minister, said this when met after officiating the Sentuhan Kasih dan Advokasi Kepenggunaan programme at the Dataran Tomborungus, near here, on Sunday. 

He said although GRS is a coalition of local parties, one of the benchmarks of the strength of public support for a particular party is its election record.

“As long as there are national parties in Sabah that receive strong support from the people, we need to open up space for cooperation to form political stability,” he said. 

Armizan believes this is important because national parties will tend to focus on national narratives and interests, while local parties will give priority to local issues and interests.

“We need to have a national party, which is the Federal Government, that looks at the direction of the country, but in Sabah we also desperately need a local party, which is the Sabah Government that is committed to fully focusing on the development of a more advanced and successful Sabah.

“In the cooperation, the first principle is that the main pillar in the Federal Government is the national party, while the main pillar in the Sabah Government should be the local party. 

“Any party that forms the Sabah Government must agree to place the rights and interests of Sabah as the core direction and agenda of the Sabah Government,” he said.

He said a “United Sabah” is one of the four core struggles of the GRS, in addition to “Sabah First”, “Sabah Forward” and “Sabah Prosper”. 

“A United Sabah should not only refer to the unity of political parties, but the unity of the people of Sabah as a whole, because the prerequisite for the strength of voice and bargaining power is the unity of the people of Sabah itself.

“This cooperation must be built on mutual trust, just like the unity in the current Sabah Government when the Pakatan Harapan State Assembly members came forward to support the retention of the Chief Minister from GRS, out of confidence in the unity for the stability and development of Sabah,” he said.