Rohani willing to defend seat in coming polls

KUCHING: Minister of Women, Family and Community Development Dato Sri Rohani Karim is leaving it to the Barisan Nasional (BN) top leadership to decide on whether she would defend her Batang Lupar seat in the next election.

She said she is willing and ready to represent BN again if given the chance.

“But for now, we just have to wait for the Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to decide,” she told the Borneo Post and Utusan Borneo here Friday.

Rohani believed that both Abang Johari, who is state BN chairman and Najib, who is national BN chairman, know what is best for BN’s victory.

Should she be given the nod to defend her seat and deliver, she is set to become one of the longest serving MPs in Malaysia.

Rohani made her parliamentary election debut in 1990, contesting in Santubong, which she won and retained the seat for two more terms.

In 2004, she moved to Batang Lupar and won the election unopposed and went on to retain the seat for three consecutive terms.

Rohani, who is Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) women deputy chief, said she is well prepared for her seventh parliamentary election.

“I have been visiting my constituency and meeting the people every weekend during my Ministerial, constituency and party programmes.

“We go to the ground and explain the issues to them. This is something that we have been doing all this while,” she said.

Rohani said issues always crop up, especially prior to election, but it does not mean the government had not been doing anything about it.

She acknowledged that water shortage, flooding and intrusion of salty water, which affects the development of agriculture, had always been problems in her constituency and assured that the government is paying serious attention to these issues.

“But please understand; it takes time to resolve the issues because substantial amount of allocation is needed to mitigate them.

“Basically these issues have been looked into and efforts are being undertaken in some way by the government to resolve them, but as I have said, it doesn’t mean that all the problems can be resolved at one time,” she said.

Rohani said she had also been reminding her colleagues in the cabinet on certain issues in her constituency that should be resolved by the respective ministry.

She said many had been implemented while the rest are still pending implementation.