GE15: BN’s Salleh Keruak, Rahman Dahlan eyeing Kota Belud seat

Salleh Said Keruak (left) and Abdul Rahman Dahlan

KOTA KINABALU: Two former federal ministers are in the race to be Barisan Nasional’s choice of candidate for Sabah’s Kota Belud parliamentary seat.

The duo - Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak and Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan - are touted to be the two names for the constituency where Umno won its first state seat (Usukan) in a by-election in May 1991, just months after it spread its wings to Sabah.

Former chief minister Tun Datu Mustapha Harun won the seat in the by-election.

Umno was dealt a shock defeat in the 2018 general polls when Salleh lost the Kota Belud seat to Parti Warisan’s Isnaraissah Munirah Majilis.

The party has now set its sights on reclaiming the northern constituency, which it considers to be one of its winnable seats.

Salleh redeemed his loss of the parliamentary seat by winning the Usukan state seat in the September 2021 Sabah snap election.

Sabah Umno sees him as among the choices of a winnable candidate, though some others argue that Abdul Rahman, an Umno supreme council member, could be a strong choice for the seat.

Salleh has yet to comment on the possibility of his candidacy but Abdul Rahman has voiced his keenness to serve the Kota Belud people again.

“The way I answer this (question) is that I love to serve Kota Belud again. I still have many plans for Kota Belud,” he said when met by reporters at an event in Universiti Malaysia Sabah on Friday (Oct 14).

“My hashtag is ‘continue what was interrupted’. If I’m given the chance by the party, I would like to come back to Kota Belud - I will shoulder the responsibility by giving my best,” he added.

He said the Kota Belud Umno division had proposed him as one of the five candidates to be considered by the party’s leadership to stand in the seat.

Abdul Rahman took over the Kota Belud seat from Salleh in the 2008 general election and held it for two terms.

The Umno leadership then instructed him to move and contest the Sepanggar parliamentary seat in 2018, with Salleh returning to Kota Belud. Both lost their seats.

“I preferred to stay in Kota Belud then but I obeyed the party’s instruction to move to Sepanggar, but it was proven that the party’s strategy was wrong and we lost,” he said.

Towards this end, Abdul Rahman said it was important to have a stable and strong government that has a large mandate by the people after GE15.

“This is because from 2023 onwards, this country is going to face challenges you’ve never seen before, economically speaking.

“So, if the political parties and people are still at loggerheads, I think the people of Malaysia will curse us,” he said.