‘We gave you wins, now give us posts’

An emboldened Iban community in Sarawak wants premier Najib Tun Razak to consider its 14 Dayak MPs for full ministerial posts.

KUCHING: As Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak mulls over his Cabinet list, Sarawak has reminded him that the state delivered 26 parliamentary seats to Barisan Nasional’s final tally of 133 seats and “deserves a bigger representations”.

Taking this a step further, the local Iban community pointed out that of the 26 seats delivered to BN, 14 were won by Dayaks.

Kuching Iban community leader James Jimbun Pangga said Dayaks had always been loyal and supportive of BN’s leadership.

As such, he said it was only conceivable that Najib appoint “four or five full ministers” from Sarawak.

“We helped BN achieved victory, so why not have four to five full ministers from Sarawak.

“This should include some from the Dayak community since all the 14 BN Dayak candidates won their seats,” Jimbun said during a pre-Gawai celebration dinner here.

Najib is expected to announce his new cabinet on Wednesday.

As late as Saturday night, there were talks that MPs from Sabah and Sarawak were busy lobbying for posts. Running parallel to this were rumours of “negotiations” between Najib and certain MPs from Sabah, who were still considered “vulnerable”.

Last Friday, FMT disclosed that BN was trying to retain its MPs in Sabah as Pakatan Rakyat-led Anwar Ibrahim was said to be courting them.

Pakatan, which has alleged electoral fraud in the May 5 general election, secured a total 89 seats in the final count.

PKR identifies five seats

Both Sarawak and Sabah contributed a collective eight seats for Pakatan. The number fell short of the cumulative 15 the coalition had aimed to secure from both these states.

Earlier today PKR strategist Rafizi Ramli said their investigation team had determined 27 seats nationwide where electoral fraud had taken place.

Of this, two are in Sarawak – Baram and Saratok – and three in Sabah – Kota Marudu, Beaufort and Pensiangan.

Rafizi said PKR had used four criteria to determine fraud and this include;

i) Margin of wins below 5%;

ii) Spoilt votes outnumbering small margin of win;

iii) Early and postal votes outnumbering the margin of win garnered from normal votes, to the extent that it affected the results of the normal votes; and

iii) seats with reports of fraud

In Baram PKR candidate Roland Engan polled 8,988 votes against BN’s 9,182. An independent Patrick Sibat managed 363 votes.

In Saratok, BN candidate William Mawan garnered 11,600 votes against PKR Ali Biju’s 9,519. BN won by slim majority of 2,081 votes.

In Sabah’s Kota Marudu, BN’s Maximum Ongkili retained his seat by a 842 vote majority in a four-cornered fight. He polled 15,168 votes against PKR’s Maijol Mahap. Mahap polled 14,326 votes.

The other two candidates from State Reform Party and Sabah Progressive Peoples Party secured 2,228 votes and 444 respectively.

Meanwhile in Beaufort, PKR’s Lajim Ukin (incumbent) lost to BN by 673-vote majority to BN’s Azizah Mohd Dun.

And in Pensiangan, BN’s Joseph Kurup retained the seat by 1,744 majority.