KOTA KINABALU: Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) will field its incumbent Kemabong assemblyman Datuk Rubin Balang to defend the seat in the coming state election, says Datuk Hajiji Noor.
"With solid machinery and full support from the voters in Kemabong, God willing Datuk Rubin Balang will win again in this election," the GRS chairman told a crowd in the constituency in Sabah’s interior Tenom seat.
Hajiji, who is Gagasan Rakyat president, endorsed Rubin amid DAP’s confirmation hours earlier that it was seeking an eighth seat to contest somewhere in the interior of Sabah.
DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke told reporters earlier Saturday (Nov 7) that the seat they were eyeing was in the interior but refused to name it.
He said DAP under Pakatan was in discussion with the electoral partners GRS and Barisan Nasional for the “interior seat.”
Rubin, who is the vice-president of Gagasan Rakyat, won the seat on an independent ticket in the 2020 state election and immediately aligned himself with the formation of the Perikatan-Bersatu government before leaving to become a member of Gagasan Rakyat in 2023.
Pakatan-DAP will have to negotiate with GRS for the seat to avoid a contest between the unity government coalition partners while it also needs to negotiate separately with Barisan-Umno to take the Kemabong state seat.
Sabah Barisan and GRS have both refused to enter any electoral pact and will contest against each other but not against candidates from Pakatan.
Loke said that they have decided to contest the interior based on the previous presence in the constituency as well as feedback on the ground for them to win the seat.
Kemabong is part of the Tenom parliamentary constituency which was once held by DAP's Noorlita Saul, a one-term MP, who lost the seat in the 2022 general election to Rubin’s son Riduan, who contested and won the Tenom seat as an independent.
The 62-year-old Rubin first won the Kemabong seat in 1994 (under Parti Bersatu Sabah ) and then left for Umno. He retained seat for five terms till 2018 when he contested and lost against Noorlita for the Tenom parliament seat. He won back Kemabong in the 2020 state election as an independent.
