Warisan president Shafie Apdal has expressed his gratitude to Sabahans who voted for his party as it went on to grab the second-highest number of seats in the state election yesterday.
The former chief minister said aside from winning 25 seats, Warisan had received more than 300,000 votes from voters of all ethnicities in both urban and rural seats across the state.
He made special mention of Chinese voters, thanking them for a major swing in the community’s votes that enabled Warisan to win in multiple urban constituencies previously deemed DAP and PKR strongholds.
“I would like to thank the voters, especially the Chinese, for the historic gains where we won a larger share of votes in urban seats.
“(Voters in) all Chinese-majority seats gave their support to Warisan,” he said at a press conference in Kota Kinabalu, adding that he has never seen such political gains in an election throughout his 36 years in politics.
Shafie, who successfully retained his Senallang seat, vowed that Warisan will push for a clean state government and leaders free from corruption.
The state election saw Warisan making huge inroads in urban, Chinese-majority seats, with the party playing a major role in booting DAP out of the state assembly by wresting Luyang, Likas, Sri Tanjong, Tanjong Papat, Elopura and Kapayan.
It also retained Tanjung Aru comfortably, with party vice-president Junz Wong winning with a 3,588-vote majority despite not having Pakatan Harapan’s backing this time around.
Warisan also won Api-Api and Inanam, two PKR strongholds.
