GE15: Every candidate has a fighting chance in sprawling, volatile Penampang

KOTA KINABALU: If there is one seat in Sabah that is hard to predict, it would be Penampang.

Voters in this semi-urban constituency that borders Kota Kinabalu city up to the foothills of the Crocker Range have time and again proved political pundits wrong.

The mainly Kadazandusun constituency with a substantial Chinese population has kept their "true" political inclinations close to the chest, preferring to make it known at the ballot box.

This electorate is known to have kicked out political heavyweights in their prime such as Tan Sri Bernard Dompok, a sitting chief minister, when he lost the Moyog state seat to Parti Bersatu Sabah’s (PBS) Datuk Clarence Bongkos Malakun in the 1999 state election.

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Dompok was again ousted by the Penampang people in the 2013 general election when they voted in Datuk Darell Leiking, then of PKR, even though the former was a federal minister and Upko president.

In 2018, incumbent Leiking, who is the current Parti Warisan deputy president, was struggling with only about a dozen or so people turning up for his ceramah while his then Barisan Nasional-Upko rival Ceasar Mandela Malakun was seeing huge crowds.

But when the last ballot was counted, Leiking won with a runaway majority of more than 23,000 votes, more than double the margin he secured against Dompok.

This shocked all those who expected a close fight in GE14.

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This round Leiking is up against Pakatan Harapan’s Datuk Ewon Benedick and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah’s (GRS) Kenny Chua, with political pundits expecting a tougher fight for the former federal minister as the mood has changed since 2018.

They were all once promising young leaders, part of the same crop of the Warisan-Pakatan-Upko state coalition government.

He is also facing a challenge from independent candidate Richard Jimmy, who was formerly with Sabah STAR, in a four-way tussle for the Penampang seat.

Leiking himself is facing accusations of not being on the ground as often when it counts while Benedick, who is the incoming Upko president, was seen as the exact opposite.

In his campaign speech in Kampung Puru in Inobong, Penampang on Monday (Nov 7), Benedick seemed to take a potshot at the incumbent, saying the people needed a leader who not only had the looks but also had no reservations about making his rounds into the far corners of the sprawling constituency.

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“I admit I am one of the most good-looking in the candidates list,” he said, to laughter from the crowd of about 80, before adding, “but we need to vote an MP who is actively going into the kampungs to meet the people, to listen to their plight and work for the people again.”

Chua is also seen as a contender to wrest the seat from Leiking despite his notoriety of being part of the group of assemblymen who switched camps to support former chief minister Tan Sri Musa Aman in his failed bid to take over the state government in July 2020.

Although the former Inanam assemblyman lost in his defence of the state seat in the 2020 snap state election, he has now climbed up the political ladder to become Sabah STAR vice president.

Chua is also the chairman of Sabah Air Aviation Sdn Bhd, a state government agency.

“The main focus in my campaign will be on the development in Penampang, what I can do for the welfare of the people and communities. I want to implement more action-oriented plans for Penampang,” he said.

Leiking is expected to focus his campaign on the “Reset Sabah” slogan, or resetting the political landscape in Sabah to allow more or exclusive representation of local parties in the Dewan Rakyat.

After nominations closed on Saturday (Nov 5), Leiking said he hoped Warisan would be able to represent the Sabah bloc.

“Warisan is a small party and it’s difficult because we are facing big coalitions but we will work hard, try our best and hopefully the people of Penampang will... give us another opportunity,” he said.

Penampang, which is almost twice the size of Melaka at 463.5sq km, has over 74,000 voters, comprising about 60% non-Muslim bumiputra and 20% Chinese, with Muslim bumiputra and other ethnicities making up the rest.