He is officially appointed by the Governor, who in His Excellency's judgement is likely to command the confidence of the majority of the members of State Legislative Assembly.

He heads the State Cabinet, whose members are appointed by the Yang di-Pertua Negeri on the advice of the Premier.

The Parliament of Malaysia then used emergency powers to amend the constitution of Sarawak to facilitate the removal of Ningkan from office.

This makes the federal more reliant on support from the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak to cling on power.

[3] Adenan Satem, after took over the chief minister post in 2014, had asked for greater autonomy and empowerment from federal government to recognise Sarawak Day on 22 July 1963, increase in oil royalty from 5% to 20%, and greater autonomy as enshrined in Constitution of Malaysia, and re-examine the documents such as Malaysia Agreement, Inter-government committee (IGC) report and Cobbold Commission report.

[4] In 2018, Abang Johari decided to pull out all of his affiliated political parties from the Barisan Nasional (BN) national coalition to form state-based Sarawak Parties Alliance in light of the BN defeat in the 2018 Malaysian general election.

In March 2020, high court ruled that Sarawak has power to levy sales tax and Petronas is entitled to pay for it.

[7] In February 2022, Abang Johari passed a motion in state assembly to rename the chief minister post to "Premier".