All in the family in Sabah
Brothers and father and son are all elected lawmakers
KOTA KINABALU: It’s all in the family in Sabah when a son became MP in the constituency where his father is the assemblyman and two pairs of brothers also succeeded in winning seats in the Dewan Rakyat.
Riduan Rubin, one of two Independents to have won in the 15th General Election, shocked incumbent Noorita Sual of Pakatan Harapan in the Tenom seat, winning with a majority of 1,108 votes.
His father Rubin Balang is the Kemabong state assemblyman in the same parliamentary constituency.
Verdon Bahanda is the other Independent to win on Saturday. He beat Gabungan Rakyat Sabah’s (GRS) Datuk Ruddy Awah with a majority of 1,967 votes in Kudat.
His brother, Datuk Wetrom Bahanda, the Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat’s (KDM) deputy president, stunned Parti Bersatu Sabah president Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili to win the Kota Marudu seat with a 8,174-vote majority.
Ongkili, who had held the seat for 27 years, could only secure 16,144 votes.
The other pair of victorious siblings is the Apdal brothers – Parti Warisan president Datuk Seri Shafie and Datuk Yusof.
Shafie retained the Semporna seat which he has held since 1995 for the seventh term while Yusof retook the Lahad Datu seat from a defector.
Yusof won with a majority of 4,376 votes, defeating Barisan Nasional’s Maizatul Akmam
Alawi (22,740) and Pakatan’s Sia Yu Hock (8,289).
Shafie, as expected, won with a whopping majority of 20,810 votes, defeating Nixon Abdul Habi from GRS (7,892), Arastam Pandorog from Pakatan Harapan (1,848) and Pejuang’s Ab Rajik Ab Hamid (467).
Elsewhere, a surprising twist took place in Kinabatangan, a Barisan stronghold for decades, when its incumbent Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin was neck-and-neck with Warisan’s Mazliwati Abdul Malek in a straight fight.
Bung Moktar finally won the seat he had held since 1999 by securing 16,842 votes with a majority of only 4,330 against Mazliwati.
Pakatan’s Chan Foong Hin was the winner with the highest majority – he had 31,359 votes against Warisan’s Amanda Yeo (7,576) and GRS’ Yee Tsai Yiew (4,592) – for a majority of 23,783 votes in the Kota Kinabalu seat.
Chan was followed by Shafie who had a 20,810 majority and Pakatan’s Vivien Wong in Sandakan with a majority of 11,031.
Meanwhile, Putatan saw the slimmest of majorities with Barisan’s Datuk Shahelmey Yahya beating Pakatan’s Awang Husaini Sahari by just 124 votes.
A total of 48 candidates in Sabah lost their deposits in the election. Among them was the country’s youngest parliamentary seat candidate Peggy Chaw in Tenom.