Sabah’s first female minister and widow of its first CM passes away

KOTA KINABALU: Toh Puan Rahimah Stephens (pic), the widow of Sabah's first chief minister Tun Mohd Fuad Stephens, has passed away on Monday (March 14). She was 91.

Rahimah died of a heart attack at a private hospital where she was admitted after suffering a fall at her house here over the weekend.

"She was waiting to be treated by a specialist today but unfortunately she succumbed to a heart attack early this morning," her daughter Faridah Stephens said.

Details of the funeral arrangements were not immediately available.

Rahimah, who was seen as a reluctant politician, took over her husband's political mantle shortly after he and five other Sabah Cabinet ministers were killed in an air crash on June 6, 1976, just three months after Fuad led Parti Berjaya to power toppling Usno led by Tun Mustapha Harun.

She was elected to her husband's Kiulu seat in a by-election and became the first Sabah woman Cabinet minister in the Berjaya government under Tan Sri Mohd Harris Salleh.

Born on Oct 22, 1930, in Beaufort, Rahimah is known as the first state woman leader to begin the ball rolling for woman and children's welfare as she spear headed the Social Services Ministry.

"I believe that she started the focus on woman and children issues under the ministry," said former state secretary Tan Sri Simon Sipaun, who remembers Rahimah from the days she was a teacher at Sacred Heart school here.

"She (Rahimah) was a very down to earth, pleasant and soft-spoken," said Sipaun, who personally felt that she was a reluctant politician who was thrust into politics after the death of her husband.

In 1972, Fuad was made Yang di-Pertua Negeri after patching a political feud with Mustapha but by 1974-75, Fuad quit to lead newly formed Berjaya to challenge Mustapha.

Since losing her seat when Berjaya lost the government in the 1985 state election, Rahimah has kept a low political profile and mostly spent her time with family.

Rahimah is survived by her children Asgari, Faridah and Fauziah.