BN, PPBM said to contest 49 Sabah seats

BN and PPBM and their allies STAR and PBS will take on Warisan Plus in the state elections this month.

KOTA KINABALU: Barisan Nasional and PPBM are expected to contest 30 and 19 seats respectively in the Sabah state assembly elections later this month.

FMT has learnt that the division of seats was agreed upon by both parties recently. “Some of the seats that Umno will contest are those won in the last general election, but there are some seats that had to be vacated for PPBM,” said an insider privy to the negotiations.

Earlier today, Umno secretary-general Annuar Musa had congratulated Sabah Umno chairman Bung Moktar Radin and Sabah PPBM chairman Hajiji Noor for successfully working out the seat distribution between the two parties.

“I congratulate Bung and Hajiji for agreeing to the seat distribution so wisely. Both are really committed to defending Sabah,” he said on his Twitter account.

If the division of seats between the two parties is completed, this means they will contest in 49 of the 73 seats. It also means there are only 24 seats to be divided among their allied parties in their fight against Warisan Plus.

The parties are Perikatan Nasional (PN) components STAR and SAPP as well as their allies Parti Bersatu Sabah.

STAR president Jeffrey Kitingan today announced the party will contest 15 seats in addition to three more seats that are said to be still under discussion. Kitingan, as quoted in a Metro Daily report, said STAR had previously asked for 18 seats and had received 15.

Meanwhile, a PBS source told FMT that the party still has hopes of contesting 30 seats which they believe they can win.

“However, in the spirit of cooperation to enable PN to win as many seats as possible, we are still open for discussion. But as I said earlier, we have identified the number of seats we believe we have a chance of winning,” said the source. - FMT