KOTA KINABALU, Nov 8 — DAP has refrained from officially announcing it would contest in an interior state seat in Sabah, out of courtesy and respect for its election partners who are also said to be vying for the seat.
DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke said today that the party has every intention to contest the seat, but is hoping for an amicable resolution in the one week left until Nomination Day.
“There is one seat yet to be announced because there are negotiations that maybe haven’t been finalised. We respect the other coalitions so there is time to reach an agreement before we make an official announcement.
“But, it does not change anything, the decision has been made. We just want to respect the harmony between the parties,” he said.
Loke did not name the seat, but it is understood he is referring to the Kemabong seat in the interior district of Tenom, where the party plans to field Senator Noorita Sual against the incumbent Datuk Rubin Balang.
Noorita held the Tenom parliamentary seat in 2018, but narrowly lost it in the 2022 general election.
“We do want to avoid clashes, especially with our partners in the government,” Loke said.
But Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor today confirmed Rubin, who is vice-president of Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) will be defending Kemabong.
GRS and PH formed the Sabah government together after the last state election.
Loke said that DAP is being prudent about its seats and that from the onset it has good chances of winning the seat, based on its past performance.
“We are not greedy, we only targeted eight seats.
“We have a good, local candidate, a woman who we feel has the highest chances of winning,”he said, reiterating that the party’s decision “has been made”.
Loke also said that the party had made very strategic moves in this election by deploying two “heavyweights” in Sandakan and Kota Kinabalu MPs Vivian Wong and Datuk Chan Foong Hin to try and wrest the Elopura and Tanjung Aru state seats from its Parti Warisan incumbents.
“We made exceptions for them this time because we feel that we have good chances of winning with the strategy in mind,” Loke said.
He also asserted that his constituents have benefited from his election as Seremban MP, Chennah assemblyman and appointment as transport minister.
“Having a federal government representative is an important advantage. My state constituency is very happy to have a federal minister as their rep,” he said, citing the reason behind putting Chan in the Tanjung Aru state seat.
“So I’m sure if Tanjung Aru elects Chan, they will have a federal deputy minister representing them, which brings a lot of advantages like access to programmes and services. We will try to convince voters of this,” he said.
