Sarawak election Dec 12: key dates and the Petros-Petronas dispute

Key takeaways

• Malaysia's Election Commission set polling for the 13th Sarawak state election for Dec 12, 2026, with nomination on Nov 28, 2026 and early voting on Dec 8, 2026, EC chairman Ramlan Harun announced on Nov 6, 2026, according to Bernama.
• Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), which won 76 of the 82 seats in the Dec 18, 2021 election, will contest all 82 seats, Premier Abang Johari Openg said in late October 2026, The Star reported.
• The state's push to make its own company, Petros, the gas distributor in Sarawak has put it in a legal fight with national oil company Petronas; the Federal Court has fixed Jan 25-29, 2027 to hear petitions from both sides.
• Abang Johari told The Edge he hopes the dispute can be settled before the end of 2026, possibly out of court; analysts quoted by Malay Mail doubted a deal is possible while the court cases are pending.

Sarawak state election 2026: the key dates

Sarawak's roughly 2.06 million registered voters will choose all 82 members of the state assembly on Dec 12, 2026. The vote follows the dissolution of the assembly on Oct 26, 2026, about four months before its term was due to end in February 2027, The Edge reported. For investors, the poll matters less for who forms the next state government than for what the result signals about the long-running fight between the state and Petronas over who controls gas distribution in Sarawak.

The Election Commission (EC) fixed the timetable at a special meeting on Nov 6, 2026. EC chairman Datuk Seri Ramlan Harun told a press conference that the campaign would run for 14 days, Bernama and Malay Mail reported. Malay Mail, citing The Borneo Post, described it on Nov 7, 2026 as the longest campaign period in Sarawak's electoral history.

Seats, voters and cost

The EC said the election will use the September 2026 electoral roll, updated to Oct 25, 2026. Figures released on Nov 6, 2026 and reported by Bernama and The Star break down as follows.

The Star reported that the EC will expand its Optical Character Recognition Voter Attendance (OCRVA) system, previously piloted, to every polling stream in the state.

Who is contesting: GPS goes for all 82 seats

GPS, the ruling coalition of four Sarawak-based parties, is defending a dominant position. In the Dec 18, 2021 election it won 76 of 82 seats, with Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) taking four and DAP two, according to The Edge. The coalition's members are Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), the Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP), Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) and the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP).

"I can confirm that GPS will contest all 82 seats," Abang Johari, who chairs GPS, said at a meeting at PBB headquarters in Kuching, The Star reported on Oct 29, 2026. He said seat allocation among the four parties would be based on their performance in the previous state election and that the candidate list would be revealed before nomination day. On Nov 5, 2026, he told reporters in Petaling Jaya that the list was not yet final, Bernama reported.

Seat allocation is where analysts see friction. Lee Kuok Tiung, a political analyst at Universiti Malaysia Sabah, told the Sarawak Tribune on Nov 6, 2026 that former PSB representatives who joined PDP after PSB's dissolution in 2024 will likely want to keep their seats, which could create rivalry with SUPP branches. He described the opposition as fragmented and said the short window makes it harder for opposition parties to agree on seats and avoid multi-cornered contests.

Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof, a PBB senior vice-president, said on Nov 7, 2026 that PBB and GPS election machinery had been ready since the last state election, Malay Mail reported. He dismissed speculation that he would stand as a candidate himself.

Why the Petros-Petronas dispute dominates the campaign

Lee told the Sarawak Tribune that the "Sarawak First" agenda would be a major campaign theme, listing the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), Petros, the takeover of Bintulu Port, the acquisition of MASwings for a state airline and the acquisition of Affin Bank.

What Petros and Petronas are arguing about

Petroleum Sarawak Berhad (Petros) is wholly owned by the state government and was appointed Sarawak's sole gas aggregator in February 2024 under the state's Distribution of Gas Ordinance 2016, The Edge reported. That ordinance bars anyone from supplying or distributing gas in Sarawak without a licence. Petronas, which draws its rights from the federal Petroleum Development Act 1974, says it does not need such a licence, according to The Edge. Sarawak, for its part, cites MA63 and argues that its Oil Mining Ordinance 1958 was never repealed.

In May 2025, Putrajaya and Sarawak signed a joint declaration under which Petros would control domestic gas distribution and Petronas would handle liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, with a supply of 1.2 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day to Sarawak, The Edge reported. No final commercial agreement had been reached as of the paper's Nov 5, 2026 interview with Abang Johari.

The court cases

The dispute has already produced several rulings. Shell MDS, which runs a plant in Bintulu, asked the courts whom it should pay for gas, and Petros refused to pay for gas supplied in August 2024 on the grounds that Petronas was unlicensed, after which Petronas called on a RM7.95 million bank guarantee, The Edge reported. The paper said the courts ruled in Petronas's favour in both cases, but the underlying constitutional questions are now before the Federal Court.

Two separate petitions are pending there:

• Petronas filed in January 2026 (Jan 10, 2026, according to Bernama via Malay Mail; The Edge gives Jan 12, 2026) and was granted leave on March 16, 2026. It argues that the Sarawak legislature lacks competence to make laws on matters in the Federal List and asks that several state laws be declared invalid. The Edge said the challenge covers 10 Sarawak laws, including the Oil Mining Ordinance 1958 and the Environment (Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emission) Ordinance 2023.
• The Sarawak government filed on Feb 23, 2026, seeking a declaration that the Petroleum Development Act 1974, the Continental Shelf Act 1966 and the Petroleum Mining Act 1966, as applied to Sarawak, are unconstitutional and void from the outset.

On Oct 1, 2026, Federal Court judge Rhodzariah Bujang set Jan 25-29, 2027 for the hearing in Putrajaya, Bernama reported via Malay Mail. The petitions are not consolidated and will be heard in the order filed; the hearing panel will decide whether Sarawak's preliminary issue on the Sarawak (Alteration of Boundaries) Order in Council 1954 should be heard first. Both sides will ask the Chief Justice for an enlarged panel of nine or 11 judges. Written submissions are due on Jan 11, 2027 and replies on Jan 18, 2027.

Settlement before the end of 2026?

Asked by The Edge whether the dispute would be settled before year-end, Abang Johari said: "Yes, before the end of the year." He added that he hoped it could be settled out of court, said the two sides were near "the last mile", and suggested a joint Petros-Petronas entity to explore, produce and land gas at Sarawak's low-carbon hub. He also said Petronas "cannot be acting like the federal government" because it is a commercial entity.

Analysts quoted by Malay Mail on Nov 6, 2026 were sceptical. "You cannot get an agreement while these court cases are happening," said James Chin of the University of Tasmania. Analyst Jamil Ghani said that missing the year-end target could raise questions about GPS's credibility. Malay Mail also noted earlier timelines that slipped: Sarawak had anticipated a commercial agreement by December 2025, and Fadillah said in December 2025 that an outcome was expected in early 2026.

Petronas's position on a year-end settlement was not reported in the sources Bullquill reviewed as of Nov 10, 2026.

What it means for investors

The election itself does not decide the legal question; the Federal Court does, and its hearing begins about six weeks after polling day. What investors can watch is how the timeline and the campaign interact:

• Before polling (Nov 28 to Dec 12, 2026): whether either side announces a commercial agreement, given Abang Johari's stated year-end target.
• After polling: whether a renewed mandate changes the state's negotiating stance. Analyst Azman Awang Pawi of Universiti Malaya told Malay Mail that the greater risk is negotiations that repeatedly produce optimistic announcements without concrete implementation.
• Jan 11-29, 2027: the submission deadlines and the five-day hearing, including whether the Chief Justice grants an enlarged bench.

For readers following Malaysian energy assets, the case touches how gas is licensed and paid for in Sarawak, which the earlier Shell MDS and bank-guarantee disputes showed can affect commercial counterparties directly. Petronas's contribution to Malaysia's 2027 budget is covered in our analysis of the Brent slump and ASEAN oil budgets. For the political backdrop, see our Melaka state election 2026 explainer, and follow ongoing coverage on the Petronas and Malaysia topic pages.

Bullquill does not forecast election results. The figures in this article are as published by the Election Commission and the cited news organisations between Oct 1 and Nov 7, 2026.

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This article is for information only and is not investment advice.