KOTA KINABALU: Gabungan Rakyat Sabah’s Tuaran candidate Datuk Joniston Bangkuai will have the full weight of his party’s machinery behind him as he bids to wrest the seat back from Upko president Datuk Seri Wilfred Madius Tangau.
In fact, two parties who are bitter rivals in the peninsula – GRS’ Bersatu and Barisan Nasional’s Umno – will work together in a multi-party election machinery that has been put together by GRS chairman Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor.
GRS and Barisan want to wrest the seat as Madius is seen as a “turncoat” because of his decision to pull Upko out of Barisan to forge a coalition with Warisan and Pakatan Harapan hours after the 2018 GE results were announced.
Members from the two mainly Muslim-majority state seats of Sulaman and Pantai Dalit within the Tuaran constituency have been mobilised in the joint team to ensure Bangkuai’s win.
The two other state seats making up Tuaran are Kadazandusun-based Tamparuli and Kiulu, both held by Parti Bersatu Sabah.
The two heavyweights are expected to be challenged by former beauty queen Jo-anna Sue Henley Rampas from Warisan in the intense fight for the semi-rural seat that stretches from the foothills of Mount Kinabalu to the coast of Tuaran.
Bangkuai defeated Madius by over 1,200 votes for the Kiulu state seat in the 2020 snap Sabah elections. In the 2018 general election, Bangkuai defeated Rampas by 1,443 votes to retain the Kiulu seat he first won in 2013.
Hajiji said his Sulaman state seat and Pantai Dalit under Barisan-Umno will work very hard to ensure Bangkuai’s win.
Speaking at a gathering with Tuaran’s Umno and Bersatu division leaders, he said GRS was formed on an understanding that it was time for all to work together to develop Sabah.
“We must not repeat past mistakes,” he said, adding that Sabah was the second poorest state despite having so much in terms of resources because of too much political bickering.
“It is time that we stop the political bickering and concentrate on developing the state instead,” he said.
