No parachute candidates for Kalabakan please, Ghapur tells BN

The three-term MP for Kalabakan says fielding outsiders will complicate the election campaign.

Facebook pic

KOTA KINABALU: Kalabakan Umno has warned against fielding “parachute candidates” in the constituency at the coming polls.

Incumbent MP Ghapur Salleh said the division had made it clear to the party that its members would only support candidates chosen from among the Kalabakan Umno committee members.

“If the party’s leadership opts to parachute in outsiders to stand here, it would make our job difficult to persuade the people to vote for BN,” he said after attending a public event in Tawau.

The Kalabakan federal constituency has three state seats – Merotai, Tanjung Batu and Sebatik – all won by Barisan Nasional (BN) at the last general election.

Ghapur said he did not see any other problem for BN to defend the four seats, saying Umno’s election machinery had been ready since the past six months in all 21 polling districts there.

Earlier in his speech, Ghapur said voters should not be swayed by the opposition who he claimed only appeared during election season.

“When election comes, opposition parties start to promise the moon and the stars when in fact they will disappear afterwards and only Umno and BN will remain to solve the people’s problems,” he said.

Ghapur won the Kalabakan seat uncontested twice, in 2004 and 2008.

In 2013, he defeated six other candidates, the closest rival from PAS. - FMT