Sabah heads to polls on Nov 29

The Election Commission (EC) has announced that the Sabah state election will be held on Nov 29.

In a press conference today, it also set Nov 15 for nominations, with early voting scheduled for Nov 25.

EC chairperson Ramlan Harun said the campaigning period is set at 14 days, beginning from the nomination day until Nov 28 (11.59pm).

He added that the commission received formal notification of the dissolution of the 16th Sabah legislative assembly from the state speaker earlier this month.

“With this, we held a special meeting today and decided to hold the state election to fill the 73 vacant state assembly seats,” Ramlan said during a press conference in Kota Kinabalu today.

Ramlan also announced the appointment of 25 returning officers and 196 assistant returning officers, supported by 86 election campaign enforcement teams comprising representatives from the police, local councils, and candidates’ representatives.

A total of 33,002 election staffers will also be mobilised to manage the polls across 940 polling centres statewide, including 882 ordinary polling stations and 58 early-voting centres, with a total of 3,645 polling streams.

Ramlan said the EC has allocated RM116.8 million for the exercise.

The latest electoral roll, updated as of August 2025, has over 1.78 million registered voters - including 11,697 military personnel and their spouses, and 12,729 police and General Operations Force officers with their spouses.

Postal voting

Ramlan said applications for both domestic and overseas postal voting opened on Oct 13, with deadlines set for different categories.

“Applications to become a postal voter under several categories can be done online via the EC’s official website.”

The Sabah state assembly was dissolved on Oct 6.

Sabah caretaker chief minister Hajiji Noor, who is also GRS chairperson, said the move followed the completion of the coalition government’s five-year term - a period marked by record state revenues but also plagued by persistent challenges, including infrastructure failures, corruption scandals, poverty, and unemployment.

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