KUCHING, Nov 6: About half of the candidates to be fielded by Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarawak in the upcoming Sarawak election will be new faces.
DAP Sarawak chairman Chong Chieng Jen, in giving this hint, said that some of the incumbents will be defending their seats while some will not.
“We have all the potential candidates. I’d be failing my duty if I did not have the potential candidates by now. There will be new faces; about half of them.
“You will know in due course. Everything will be over in 58 days (so) who will contest where will be made known,” he told a press conference held in Sibu which was broadcast live on its social media page today.
As the election will be held amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Chong pointed out that the party is holding a meeting to discuss new strategies to tackle the situation.
With constraints and limitations according to the current standard operating procedures (SOP) for election which disallow physical campaigning and house-to-house visits, Chong who is also Kota Sentosa incumbent said DAP Sarawak will soldier on: “Even if our feet and hands are tied, we still have our mouths.”
It is understood that DAP Sarawak is expected to contest in 26 seats, in which half of them will be represented by new faces.
In the 11th Sarawak Election, DAP Sarawak won seven out of 31 seats it contested in.
However, the party currently holds five seats namely Kota Sentosa which Chong is the incumbent, Pending (Violet Yong), Bukit Assek (Irene Chang), Pelawan (David Wong) and Tanjung Batu (Chiew Chin Sing).
As for the other two seats, Pujut has been left vacant since 2017 following the disqualification of Dr Ting Tiong Choon over Australian citizenship allegations, while the Padungan seat is considered independent after the incumbent Wong King Wei quit the party last year. — DayakDaily
