S'wak BN confident of retaining Lawas, Limbang

LAWAS: Sarawak Barisan Nasional (BN) is confident of retaining the Lawas and Limbang parliamentary seats in the 14th General Election (GE14) on May 9, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan.

Awang Tengah, who is also Parti Pesaka Bumiputera (PBB) deputy president, said this was because both seats are the BN strongholds as well as based on the results of the 2016 state elections.

"In the last state election, BN won two state seats, Bukit Sari under the Lawas parliamentary constituency and Bukit Kota under the Limbang parliamentary constituency unopposed,” he said when launching the Lawas parliamentary constituency election machinery here yesterday.

He said this also proved the strength of BN in these two parliamentary seats and even the opposition was reluctant to contest during the state election.

For the record, the incumbents of the two seats are from PBB, with Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Datuk Henry Sum Agong, 72, being the incumbent for the Lawas parliamentary seat since 1999.

The incumbent for the Limbang parliamentary constituency is Hasbi Habibollah, 55, who held the seat since 2008.

However there has yet to be an official announcement on whether the incumbents will be retained or replaced with new faces.