Information on Kitingan Family

Datuk Pairin Kitingan joined politics in 1976 when he won the Sabah state seat of Tambunan in the 1976 State elections under a Berjaya Party ticket. That year, almost the entire Sabah State Cabinet was wiped out as a result of a plane crash which killed all the passengers including the Chief Minister (Tun Fuad Stephens) and other ministers. Datuk Harris Salleh then became Chief Minister from 1976 to 1985. Datuk Pairin served first as an Assistant Minister, then as Minister in the Harris Administration until 1982 when he was kicked out as a result of his (and the people's at large) growing dissatisfaction to Harris's high-handedness and arrogance. Harris maneuvered a by-election in Tambunan after Datuk Pairin's departure from Berjaya and put Roger Ongkili as the candidate against Datuk Pairin. Datuk Pairin won handsomely in this by-election, one of the few by-elections in which the under-dog managed to defeat the ruling party. In 1984, Datuk Pairin was made the 'Huguan Siou', the prestigious title bestowed by the Kadazan Dusun community of Sabah, confirming him as the paramount leader of that community.

In 1985, Datuk Pairin faced Berjaya and Usno with his fledging Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and won a simple majority of 25 seats. The assemblyman for Moyog who won the seat through PBS' support joined the Party, giving PBS a slim but workable majority to form the Government, but not before Datuk Pairin had to use legal and unofficial federal support to remove Tun Mustapha who had managed to illegally install himself as the chief minister under cover of darkness. Datuk Pairin was then rightfully sworn in as Chief Minister. Mustapha's and Harris's defeat led to various unrests in the state capital Kota Kinabalu, with riots and bombings organised by unscrupulous politicians using foreign and illegal immigrants, and this instability and the danger posed by the simple majority led Datuk Pairin to dissolve the assembly and call for a snap election in 1986. This time, PBS was returned with a much bigger majority and was then able to rule without too much trouble. PBS again won in 1990 elections. In the next State elections of 1994, PBS again won a simple majority of 25 seats, but this time, there was a lot of power play with the involvement of the federal leaders. Datuk Pairin was sworn in as Chief Minister, but had to resign when  a number of his own assemblymen switched camps including his brother Dr. Jeffrey. PBS  remained in the opposition, led by Datuk Pairin, to participate in the next state election in 1999, which saw PBS win 17 of the 48 seats. Post election analysis of the election results showed that PBS together with the other major opposition party BERSEKUTU which participated in the election secured more votes than BN which won the election, but ended up winning less seats because of the lack of cooperation between the two and the many dirty tactics employed by using illegal voters and gerrymander.

 Dr. Jeffrey who had rejoined PBS before the election and who was nominated as the PBS candidate for Bingkor was also elected as an assemblyman. After the election, there was a lot of behind the scenes maneuvering to get PBS accepted back into the BN fold, but BN was not receptive to the idea at that time. Eventually, two of the 17 assemblymen left the Party to join UMNO after several weeks.  The rest of the PBS reps decided to stay with the Party and play the role of the opposition. However, at the end of  2000/early 2001, Dr. Jeffrey and 5 other PBS assemblymen left PBS and joined PBRS a BN component party, in anticipation of  the rotation of the chief ministership being passed back to the KadazanDusun community, and the assumption that PBRS would have a greater chance of getting the post if it had a greater number of assemblymen.  Of course this was not the case when Datuk Chong Kah Kiat of LDP was picked by Dr. Mahathir as his choice of Chief Minister for the next two years. 

The latest development is the formal application of PBS to rejoin the ruling coalition when the PBS delegates at its November 2001 Party Congress decided to give the mandate to its Supreme Council to take the steps to rejoin the BN as a Party. Less than a month after the formal application was made, the PBS assemblyman for Moyog decided to join UPKO, another BN component.  PBS was accepted back into the BN fold in Jan 2002.

As a brother, Datuk Pairin is a warm and affable person, very sociable and able to get on well with all, even the ordinary folks in the villages, who love him and accept him as their leader.  It is not uncommon to see the village folks hugging and crying over him when he leaves their village. His charismatic leadership and closeness with the people has endeared him to the Kadazan Dusun community who bestowed the Huguan Siou title on him in 1984. Because of his enormous responsibilities and positions, we as brothers looked up  to him as our leader and considered ourselves privileged to have such a man as our brother. In this regard, we certainly played our part as good citizens and seemed to be the more disadvantaged because of our family ties with him, as the federal powers seemed to look for any abuse of power as an excuse to bring him down.  We all think that the court cases brought against him were all part of a grand campaign to smear his good name which he has upheld until now. 

Datuk Pairin is married to Datin Genevieve. They have two adult sons, the eldest (Alex) of whom is married with two children. Both children were trained as lawyers. Daniel his brother is working in Australia.