Tiong retains Bintulu, secures 7,022-vote majority
BINTULU: Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing retained Bintulu seat after securing a 7,022-vote majority in the parliamentary election yesterday.
This win earned Tiong his fifth term as MP. He polled 27,076 votes versus Democratic Action Party ( DAP)’s candidate Tony Chiew Chan Yew who received 20,054 votes, while State Reform Party Sarawak (STAR) candidate Chieng Lea Phing obtained 328 votes.
The official result was announced by returning officer (RO) Mataip Sayu at 10.15pm at the civic centre here last night.
When met after the announcement, Tiong thanked all his voters especially those from the rural areas for their strong support for him to win the election.
“I would also like to thank the government agencies, especially the Election Commission for assisting us in carrying out this election smoothly, and also the police for ensuring the safety of all during the polling process.”
When asked about the loss of Mas Gading and Saratok seats to DAP and PKR respectively, Tiong – the Progressive Democratic Party ( PDP) president – said it was ‘very unexpected’.
“I don’t want to comment further because I want to get the postmortem first. We never expected it. I heard there were some human errors involved, but I would wait until the post- mortem before I could tell you,” Tiong said.
In the 2013 election, Tiong won by 7,433 votes after getting 26,458 votes over DAP’s John Brian Anthony’s 19,025 votes.