13 new seats ours: Leiking
Published on: Sunday, July 21, 2019
By: Larry Ralon
KOTA KINABALU: Parti Warisan Sabah Deputy President Datuk Darell Leiking (pic) said the 13 new Sabah State seats created by parliament last week should be theirs since they are the government of the day.
“Because we are the government of today, we want all the seats,” said Leiking, who is also International Trade and Industry Minister, at a press conference after attending the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM) for Climate and Energy event at Hyatt Regency, Saturday.
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He also hoped that Penampang would have another State seat in future because it is now the only parliamentary constituency that still had two state seats compared to all parliamentary constituencies around it.
“I am supposed to be the unhappy one because not only I lost Lido which has about 4,000 registered voters, but my constituency is the only one with only two state seats if we look at all parliamentary constituencies around Penampang.
“But overall, I support the increase in the state seats by 13 to 73, because that is how we progress forward.
“Like Datuk Dr Jaujan Sambakong (Warisan Vice President and Deputy Chief Minister) had said, we should also increase our parliamentary seats in Sabah.
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“To me, in Penampang, I need an additional state seat because like Papar and Putatan, which each have been given an additional state seat (Limbahau and Tanjung Dumpil, respectively), both now have three state seats each. Kota Kinabalu has three state seats, Sepanggar now have Darau (new seat) so it has three state seats. Only left Penampang with two state seats,” he said.
Tuaran parliamentary constituency also got a new and third state seat, namely Pantai Dalit.
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He nevertheless admitted that they never request for an additional seat for Penampang parliamentary constituency when the motion (to increase state seats) was passed in the State Assembly.
“The next step will be talking to Jaujan and Mohd Shafie (Warisan President and Chief Minister) and some other leaders for an increase in parliamentary and also state seats and I want one state seat for Penampang because my constituency has over 100,000 voters. It is time to have an additional state seat so we can represent them better,” he said.
Upko President Datuk Seri Wilfred Madius Tangau, who is also Deputy Chief Minister, was reported as saying this was not the right time to discuss the distribution of the additional 13 state seats.
What was more important was to ensure the people’s trust in the State Government is strengthened, he had said.
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