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| State motto: Sabah Maju Jaya | |||||
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| Capital | Kota Kinabalu | ||||
| Governor | Ahmadshah Abdullah | ||||
| Chief Minister | Hj. Musa Bin Hj. Aman | ||||
| Area | 72,500 km2 | ||||
| Population - Est. 2000 | 2,449,389 | ||||
| State anthem | Sabah Tanah Airku | ||||
Sabah is the second largest state in Malaysia and is also known as "The Land Below The Wind". It is one of the two Malaysian states on the Island of Borneo. Situated on the northeast of the island, Sabah is smaller than its sister state, Sarawak. The southern part of the island, called Kalimantan, belongs to Indonesia. The state capital is Kota Kinabalu, formerly known as Jesselton.
The Philippines claims the whole of Sabah as part of its territory, based upon the Sultanate of Brunei's cession of its north-east territories to the Sultanate of Sulu in 1703, because of military assitance given by the latter to the former.
The present elected State and Federal Government posts are held by Barisan Nasional, a Coalition of major ethnic parties, including UMNO, Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (UPKO) & Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) and Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS).
A bizarre feature of Sabah politics is a policy initiated by the Barisan Nasional in 1994: the Chief Minister's post is rotated among the coalition parties every 2 years, regardless of the party in power at the time, thus theoretically giving an equal amount of time for each major ethnic group to rule the State. This serves to extremely weaken the executive branch of the State government, which was formerly much at odds with the federal government in Kuala Lumpur. It also serves to give a disproportionate power to the minority Malay ethnic group, enabling them to overturn any local legislature implemented by the majority Kadazan-Dusun. This practice has since stopped with power now held by majority in the state assembly by the UMNO party, which also holds a majority in the national Parliament.
UMNO had a quick rise to power since its entry into Sabah in 1991 where before that both eastern Malaysian states were not penetrated by the party, whose president is the de facto leader of the ruling coalition BN and automatically the Prime Minister of Malaysia. This has given rise to dissent as the Chief Minister rotation system was halted just as UMNO, a Malay-based political party, was holding the post. Thus the 2004 general elections saw widespread disillusionment, coupled with a ineffectual opposition. The state assembly is now dominated by the ruling party BN (who conversely also did not penetrate Sabah until the 1990s.) with only one seat held by an opposition politician who is an independent candidate. This was caused by a general sentiment where a number of voters were reluctant to cast votes for BN whose victory was almost assured but did not trust the opposition parties, most of which were not vigorously active before the election. Therefore many cast votes for independent candidates.
Sabah politics (as are Malaysia's) are very much based upon party lines. A recent effort by PBS, a component party of BN, to hatch a co-operation with the one opposition candidate within the state assembly (whom conversely was a former UMNO member competing independently because he was not nominated for the constituency by his party) in an unprecedented attempt at bipartisanship, was harshly criticsized by UPKO, another component party of BN.
Although Sabah entered the Federation of Malaysia as a autonomous state, resistance to pressure from Kuala Lumpur's vision of a one-party unitary Islamic state dominated by ethnic Malays has created considerable friction and even occasional calls for Secession. These tensions are further inflamed by Kuala Lumpur's colonial mentality towards Sabah,wherein 95% of the profits from Sabah's immense natural resources are taken by the federal government, leaving the state government with only 5%. Aside from nominally separate immigration controls, little evidence remains of Sabah's theoretical autonomy.
| Year \ | Party\ | Chief Minister |
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| 1963-1964 | United National Kadazan Org (UNKO) | Datuk Donald Stephens |
| 1965-1967 | Sabah Chinese Association (SCA) | Datuk Peter Lo Sui Yin |
| 1967-1975 | UNSO | Datu Haji Mustapha Datu Harun |
| 1975-1976 | USNO | Datuk Hj. Mohd. Said Bin Keruak |
| 1976 (44 days) | Berjaya | Tun Datuk Haji Mohd Fuad Stephens |
| 1976-1985 | Berjaya | Datuk Amar Harris Bin Mohd Salleh |
| 1985-1994 | Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) | Datuk Seri Joseph Pairin Kitingan |
| 1994-1995 | Barisan Nasional (BN) | Tun Datuk Seri Panglima Haji Sakaran Bin Dandai |
| 1995-1996 | Barisan Nasional(BN) | Datuk Mohd Salleh Tun Mohd Said |
| 1996-1998 | Sabah Progressive Party/Barisan Nasional(SAPP/BN) | Datuk Yong Teck Lee |
| 1998 | Parti Demokratik Sabah (PDS) | Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima Bernard Dompok |
| 1999 | Barisan Nasional (BN) | YAB Datuk Seri Panglima Osu Bin HJ. Sukam |
| \ | Division Name\ | Area (sq km) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Coast Division | 7,588 |
| 2 | Interior Division | 18,298 |
| 3 | Kudat Division | 4,623 |
| 4 | Sandakan Division | 28,205 |
| 5 | Tawau Division | 14,905 |
Unofficially, Sabah is also home to an estimated 500,000 strong Filipino population due to lax immigration controls and poor policing of the Malaysia-Phillipines national border. While the local and federal government do not officially recognise the existence of Filipino illegal immigrants, they are widely employed commercially, forming the bulk of manual labour in construction and other sections of commerce.
Bahasa Malaysia is the national language spoken across ethnicities, although the spoken Sabahan dialect of Bahasa Malaysia differs majorly in inflection and intonation to the West Malaysian version, having more similarity in pronunciation to Bahasa Indonesia. English and the Chinese dialects Mandarin and Hakka are widely understood. In addition, Kadazan-Dusun, Bajau, Murut and other minor races also have distinct ethnic languages.
The federal government of Malaysia officially recognizes 28 ethnic groups as being "indigenous" or Bumiputra in Sabah:
See Demographics of Malaysia for some further details about the population.
In 1970, Sabah ranked as one of the richest states in the federation, with a per capita GDP second only to Selangor (which then included Kuala Lumpur). However, despite its vast wealth of natural resources, Sabah is currently the poorest of Malaysia's states. Average incomes are now among the lowest in Malaysia, and with a considerably higher cost of living than in West Malaysia. In 2000, Sabah had an unemployment rate of 5.6 per cent - the highest of any Malaysian state and almost twice the national average of 3.1 per cent. The state has the highest poverty level in the country at 16 per cent, more than three times the national average. Part of the problem is the inequitable Distribution of wealth between the State and the Federal government. The federal government extracts 95% of the revenues generated by Sabah, leaving only 5% for local needs.
Tourism, particularly eco-tourism, is a major contributor to the economy of Sabah. The most popular tourist destinations include:
Some films and shows filmed in Sabah include the first season of reality show Survivor, The Amazing Race, Eco-Challenge Borneo, Bat*21, and Sacred Planet. Sabah's first homegrown film was Orang Kita, starring Abu Bakar Ellah.
Sabah's first hip hop recording artist is Atama @ real name Andrew Ambrose Mudi who has successfully fused hip hop and tribal music.Atama's debut album My Tribal Roots was released on 30th May 2005. Visit Atama's website/
Sabah's first established newspaper was the New Sabah Times. The newspaper was founded by Donald Stephens, who later became the First Chief Minister of Sabah.
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