Poon steps in as Sabah DAP’s acting chairman

KOTA KINABALU: State Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Frankie Poon is Sabah DAP’s acting chairman following the sudden demise of Datuk Stephen Wong Tien Fatt.

The Sabah DAP deputy chairman said the matter was provided for under the party’s constitution.

He will also head the party’s election machinery to defend the Sandakan parliamentary seat held by Wong since 2013.

Poon, however, said by-election matters could wait as they were arranging funeral services for “brother” Wong.

“I believe there’s a time and a place for everything and now we should focus on laying our late brother to rest.

“Other things can wait,” said Poon at a press conference yesterday.

Wong died of a heart attack at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital shortly after a hike up at the Tambaig Adventure Park in Putatan on Thursday. He was 64.

He was one of the five nominated assemblymen which qualified him to be appointed to the state Cabinet where he was made the minister of a newly created Health and Wellbeing Ministry.

Sandakan was the first federal seat won by DAP in Sabah during the 1982 general election through its state chief Fung Ket Wing and he held it until 1990 when Parti Bersatu Sabah won it.

Barisan Nasional’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won the seat in 1999 before Wong took it back for DAP in the 2013 general election when he defeated LDP president Datuk Liew View Keong.

Liew had since left LDP and joined Warisan and won the neighbouring Batu Sapi parliamentary seat in last year’s general election.