KOTA KINABALU: After knocking out the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) president Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili in the last general election, Parti KDM is now training its guns on the seat held by the party’s acting president.
KDM president Datuk Peter Anthony announced that his fledgling party was eyeing the Kundasang seat held by Datuk Seri Dr Joachim Gunsalam in the Sabah polls which is due anytime in the next 12 months.
Anthony, who is Melalap assemblyman, said the candidate to face Gunsalam, who has held the seat for five terms since 2004, has already been identified.
Although he did not name the candidate, the individual, he said, was experienced as well as influential in Kundasang, which is located in the Ranau federal constituency, about 100km from here, and has an ethnic Kadazandusun majority.
"Our candidate is a former chief executive officer of a bank so, I don’t think there is a problem for him to stand in Kundasang," he said when met after launching the party’s 17th Sabah election machinery for the Limbahau seat in the Papar district on Sunday (Oct 13).
In the 2022 general election, KDM’s Datuk Wetrom Bahanda won the Kota Marudu MP seat after garnering 24,318 votes against the 16,144 collected by Ongkili who had held the northern Sabah seat for six consecutive terms.
Ongkili had handed the PBS presidency to Gunsalam on June 1 due to health reasons.
Anthony, who last week declared KDM will be going at it alone in the state polls, had said they were looking at at least 35 out of the 73 state seats at stake in the election that is due by September 2025.
However, on Sunday, the former state infrastructure development minister said there was a possibility the number could go up to 50 seats.
At the same time, he denied speculation that KDM was a proxy to fellow state Opposition Parti Warisan, pointing out they were not working with any party for the moment.
"Those claims that I am working silently with Warisan are slanders, where are the Warisan people today? They were not even invited, everyone here are KDM people," he said.
Anthony has kicked off his campaign for the election, revealing parts of his manifesto during the event in Papar.
Among others, he said the party was focusing on helping the poor, providing more affordable homes for the hardcore poor and also assisting the elderly.
