Sabah UMNO to defend its seats, ready to face Bersatu in GE15 - Bung Moktar

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah UMNO will be defending all the seats it won in the 14th General Election (GE14) even it if has to face Bersatu in the coming GE15, in line with the decision of the party's central top leaders.

Sabah UMNO Liaison Committee chairman, Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin said it had no choice but to respect the decision of the party's top leaders to continue defending the seats it had won in the last General Election.

"In Sabah, we have Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) but when the party decides to contest in the elections (GE15), UMNO has no choice. It has to defend its seats it had contested as well as strengthen the party," he said in a statement today.

On Friday, UMNO president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the party would be defending the parliamentary and state seats it won in GE14.

Through a post on his Facebook page, he said the matter was unanimously decided on at an UMNO Supreme Council meeting in 2020.

Yesterday, Bersatu president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the possibility of its clash with UMNO in GE15 could be among the political realities it had to accept and Bersatu was ready to face this possibility with its own ways and strategies.

Bung Moktar, who is Sabah Deputy Chief Minister, welcomed Muhyiddin's statement and said that Sabah UMNO was prepared to face any of the parties including Bersatu in the next GE.

"We (UMNO) have gone through various big challenges. We had won and lost. Hence, this is not a big obstacle for us in facing any party in the coming GE," he said while urging the UMNO machinery at all levels to be prepared in facing GE15.

In the GE14 in 2018, UMNO won seven parliamentary seats in Sabah, namely, Kudat, Beaufort, Sipitang, Beluran, Libaran, Kimanis and Kinabatangan.

However, five of its Members of Parliament then joined Bersatu, namely, Datuk Abdul Rahim Bakri (Kudat), Datuk Azizah Mohd Dun (Beaufort), Datuk Seri Dr Ronald Kiandee (Beluran), Datuk Zakaria Mohd Edris (Libaran) and Yamani Hafez Musa (Sipitang).

Currently, UMNO holds only two of the 25 parliamentary seats in Sabah, namely, Kinabatangan which is represented by Bung Moktar and Kimanis, by Datuk Mohamad Alamin, who is also Deputy Education Minister II.

-- BERNAMA