It’s celebration time for Mandela after losing debut
PENAMPANG: Ceasar Mandela Malakun, Sabah Barisan Nasional’s (BN’s) youngest candidate, is going to enjoy and celebrate Kaamataan after losing to his cousin in his election debut.
“We all hope we can win. For me it was a great heck of a fun. We did all that we can,” he said at the Penampang Cultural Centre here after the result was announced.
Before leaving the centre around 12.45am on Thursday, Mandela shook hands with everyone at the centre and obliged a few pictures with the usual beaming smile on his face.
“I feel very happy to have gone through this and I feel very satisfied with the effort that we have put in and the campaign that we have run,” he said.
“I think that it has been a great campaign by BN Penampang but we have to accept the decision of the rakyat. We have expected it to be a very tough fight from the beginning and we were very upbeat from the support and encouragement, especially from the younger generation.
“What is important here is, I think, the fact that whatever party in Malaysia, we have to accept the fact that the youths must be given a voice and a part to play in the administration of the system for our future of our country,” he stressed.
Mandela is grateful to be the youngest candidate to represent the youths in contesting for the Penampang parliamentary seat and accepted the defeat positively.
“We are all fighting for a greater Sabah, we are all fighting for a greater Penampang and if this is not our time, we accept it and we will continue to struggle for our people. We will continue to fight for the rights of our people and a very big congratulations to YB Darell Leiking on the victory,” he said.
The Parti Warisan Sabah deputy president won 32,470 votes, doubling his 13th general election (GE13) majority to 23,473 votes.
Mandela garnered 8997 votes for BN-UPKO, whilst STAR’s Cleftus Stephen Spine and Parti Kerjasama Anak Negeri’s (Anak Negeri’s) Dr Edwin@Jack Bosi collected 1196 and 445, respectively.
For Penampang there were 417 spoiled votes and the turnout of voters was 82.2% out of the total of 53,151 for the constituency.
Meanwhile the Lasimbang sisters, Jannie and Jenifer, were officially elected as the first two state assemblywomen to represent the voice of the Kapayan and Moyog people.
Jannie (DAP) won 19,558 votes with a majority of 13,250, beating Datuk Francis Goh Fah Shun’s (BN-MCA) 6,308 votes and Chong Pit Fah’s (STAR) 1,318.
It started neck-to-neck between Jenifer (Warisan) and Datuk Donald Peter Mojuntin (BN-UPKO) but she won with 9745, majority of 4,442.
Mojuntin took home 5,303 votes while Dennis J Tunding (PCS) and Danim@Aloysius Siap (STAR) garnered 222 and 605 votes respectively.