Thanks to 'stupid' Sabah ministers, BN will win with 5k-vote majority - Bung

KIMANIS POLLS | Sabah BN chairperson Bung Moktar Radin is hopeful that BN will win with a 5,000-majority vote in Kimanis by-election.

Without naming any particular person, he cited "stupid" Sabah ministers as among the reasons that will lead to BN's victory in the Jan 18 poll.

"The ministers' performance are poor and some are stupid," he told reporters when met at the BN command centre in the evening.

He said some ministers from both the state and federal levels are stupid.

"Why I said they are stupid because (one of them) came up with red carpet for his office. I don't want to tell his name, but he is bodoh gila (very stupid)," he said.

The other reason that will contribute to the defeat of Warisan's Karim Bujang is the Sabah Temporary Pass or Pas Sementara Sabah (PSS) that will be implemented in June, according to Bung.

Yesterday, Sabah Chief Minister Shafie Apdal said Warisan was unfazed by the synergy between Umno, former Kimanis MP Anifah Aman, and local opposition parties.

He said similar efforts from the opposition appeared during last year's 14th General Election, yet Warisan was able to defeat the opposition.

Shafie then pointed out Umno was affected by a mass exodus of lawmakers last year.

Bung, however, reminded Shafie that Warisan was a backdoor government that able to rule the state after getting the support of the United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (Upko).

"Warisan never won in the election. It became the government through the backdoor after Upko president Wilfred Madius Tangau jumped over," he said.

He then questioned where was the "Sabah for Sabahans" when the party was working with DAP and PKR.

"We are not strong enough, but the people outside will back Umno," he said.

This by-election is seeing a face-off between BN's Mohamad Alamin and Warisan's Karim Bujang.

Both candidates had previously served as a state assemblyperson in Bongawan, which falls under the Kimanis constituency.

Karim, 67 was a five-term Bongawan state lawmaker under the Usno and Umno platforms, from 1990 to 2013. He joined Warisan last year.

Anifah won the Kimanis parliamentary seat with a slim majority of 156 votes in the 14th general election. The Federal Court subsequently upheld the Aug 16, 2019, ruling of the Election Court that declared the victory of Anifah null and void.

Mohamad, who is fondly known as Toh Moh, is a 48-year-old Kota Kinabalu-based lawyer.

He succeeded Karim as the Bongawan state assemblyperson in 2013 but failed to retain his seat in the 2018 general election.

Kimanis is a semi-urban seat having 29,644 registered voters, with 63.16 percent of them being Muslim bumiputera, while 30.67 percent are non-Muslim bumiputra, 3.59 percent Chinese and 2.58 percent others. - Mkini