DAP’s Mordi springs big surprise in Mas Gading
KUCHING: Democratic Action Party ( DAP) sprang a huge surprise in Mas Gading after its candidate Mordi Bimol sent one of the Barisan Nasional’s ( BN) heavyweights Datuk Anthony Nogeh Gumbek packing.
In the straight- fight, Mordi a former Utusan Borneo reporter defeated his opponent, a former deputy minister of agriculture and agro-based industry and Progressive Democratic Party ( PDP) secretary- general, by a 3,024-vote majority.
Going into the election as underdog, the state DAP youth chief, 33, made his way through to Putrajaya by polling 12,771 votes against Nogeh’s 9,747 votes.
There were 236 spoilt votes while the voter turnout was 77.1 per cent.
The official election results in Mas Gading were announced by the Returning Officer Anielia Siam at 9.40pm.
Mas Gading, which is a Bidayuhmajority seat, has 29,617 voters comprising Bidayuh ( 22,058 or 74.48 pct), Chinese ( 5,233 or 17.67pct), Malay (1,489 or 5.03 pct), Iban ( 688 or 2.32 pct), Orang Ulu ( 28 or 0.09 pct) and others (121 or 0.41 pct).
In the last parliamentary election in 2013, Nogeh defeated former three-term parliamentarian Datuk Dr Tiki Lafe, Mordi and Patrick Anek Uren of Sarawak State Reform Party ( STAR) by a 2,156-vote majority.
Mordi, when met by reporters, said his victory in Mas Gading was very unexpected.
“During my campaign I did not even go to some of places which I thought were BN strongholds because I didn’t have any confidence of winning there.
“But surprisingly, I won in some of those places,” he said.
Mordi dedicated his victory to all his supporters who had been with him for the past seven years, volunteers and voters in Mas Gading.