14 PARLIAMENTARY SEATS TO SEE THREE-WAY CONTESTS
Only Sibu parliamentary seat will see a four-way fight
ONLY one parliamentary seat in Sarawak will witness a four-way battle between the incumbent and his challengers in the 14th General Election (GE14), compared with three constituencies in the previous election.
As the nomination process for GE14 in the state ended at 10am yesterday, the Election Commission announced that the Sibu parliamentary constituency would see a four-cornered fight.
Incumbent Oscar Ling Chai Yew of DAP will defend the seat for the second time.
Coincidentally, Oscar will go against two other “Yews”. They are Barisan Nasional’s Andrew Wong Kee Yew, who is the son of state Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Wong Soon Koh, and Tiew Yew Houng of the Sarawak Peaceful Party.
The other contender for the seat is Ting Ing Tung, who is contesting for Sarawak-based State Reform Party (Star).
The Puncak Borneo parliamentary seat, earlier predicted to see a four-cornered contest based on the announcement from the incumbent and challenging parties prior to nomination day, turned into a three-way battle involving BN, PKR and Star.
Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak Baru’s candidate for Puncak Borneo, Bego Sepop, who had arrived at the Siburan sub-district council office to submit his papers at 8.05am, decided to withdraw his candidacy before the nomination period closed.
Bego said that there were too many candidates contesting the parliamentary seat, leading to a split in votes among the Bidayuh community.
BN’s candidate Genot @ Jeannoth Sinel is the ruling coalition’s new bet to defend the seat previously held by Datuk Seri Dr James Dawos Mamit, who was deputy energy, green technology and water minister.
Apart from Puncak Borneo, a three-cornered contest will also take place in 13 other parliamentary constituencies in the state.
The seats included the Serian and Batang Lupar parliamentary constituencies, which will see incumbents Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot Jaem, and Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim, respectively, defending the seats for the seventh time.
Also contesting in GE14 for the seventh time is Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, who is BN’s candidate for Santubong.
Junaidi is contesting against Mohamad Fidzuan Zaidi of PKR.
All eyes would be on the Baram parliamentary constituency as BN’s Anyi Ngau, who won the seat with a slim majority of 194 votes, will be going up against his relative again.
The seat will see a straight fight between Anyi, 60, and PKR’s Roland Engan, 46, who had lost to the former in the 2013 general election.
Anyi got 9,182 votes against Roland’s 8,988 votes in a threecornered fight in GE13.
The third candidate, an independent, Patrick Sibat Sujang, only obtained 363 votes.
When met after the nomination process, Anyi said he would spare no effort to ensure BN retained Baram with a bigger majority.
“I believe that constituents in Baram can judge my performance based on my work for the people here,” he said.
Political pundits were observing the progress in the Selangau parliamentary constituency following rumours suggesting that seat incumbent and sacked Parti Rakyat Sarawak leader Datuk Joseph Entulu Belaun would contest as an independent.
The rumours were untrue as the contest in Selangau would see a straight fight between lawyer Rita Insol of BN and state PKR chairman Baru Bian, who was also Ba’kelalan assemblyman.
Entulu, who is former minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, denied speculation that he wanted to contest as an independent and urged people in Selangau to support BN.