Warisan's Munirah (left) chatting with youths as part of her campaign to defend the Kota Belud Parliament seat in Sabah.
KOTA BELUD: Incumbent Kota Belud MP Isnaraissah Munirah Majlis from Parti Warisan is having a quiet conversation with a small group of youths and women in Kampung Pintasan about 20km from here.
Unlike a ceramah, there are no speeches but instead discussions are held under a tent beside a wooden house where village youths ask about everything from starting small hawker businesses to planting chilies amid a lack of job opportunities.
The youths also seemed more interested about getting a futsal court for their village.
The youths seemed happy when Munirah told them she would try to work out a programme for them to obtain motorcycle licences as 90% of the youth did not have a licence in the district about 80km from Kota Kinabalu.
Munirah’s low-key campaign adopts a "light and easy" approach as she defends her seat against Barisan Nasional's Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan and Pakatan Harapan's Madeli@Modily Bangali, a former teacher.
Her style is in complete contrast to Rahman's pragmatic and practical pro-development approach to help the socio-economic development of Kota Belud.
Rahman has no problems telling voters of the need of a controversial multi-purpose hydro dam plan but this time, assures them that it will be placed away from any human settlements or existing kampung.
Kota Belud needs the dam, Rahman said, to help meet the water and electricity needs of the district as well as irrigating the padi fields and help mitigate the flood problems in the district.
He admits that his clear directions and plans for the district might not woo all the voters with some being more emotional.
Rahman said that Munirah belongs to a party that will be in Opposition as the party does not want to work with major coalitions, adding that there was very little chance for Warisan to be part of the government.
"I don't blame Munirah, it’s her president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal's decision not to ally themselves with any of the major parties," he said.
He said in the event Barisan wins 80 seats, their first option is to work with Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) as well as PAS to get a comfortable majority of over 112 MPs.
"Even if Warisan thinks it could be kingmaker, say they win eight seats in Sabah, they will not be considered," Rahman said, adding that Warisan was likely to lose outright in their foray in Peninsular Malaysia where they were contesting 26 seats.
Kota Belud is the heartland of the ethnic Bajau as well as the Kadazandusun and Irranun communities that sprawl from the western foothills of Mount Kinabalu to the Usukan Bay.
