By Nur Ashikin Louis
KUCHING, Dec 7: Constituents’ demand for their preferred candidates to contest is one of the contributing factors for overlapping interests for certain seats within Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), says Asajaya incumbent Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
The Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) vice-president said within the coalition itself, the component parties have already discussed the allocation of seats.
“In some cases however, the people of a certain constituency do not want to be represented by a certain party and they want to be represented by the other component party.
“This sort of situation then becomes a problem to the top GPS leadership especially to the Chief Minister-cum-GPS chairman Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg to choose whether to follow the people’s demand or to side with the component party of which the seat has been allocated to,” he said during a virtual political talk organised by Jiwa Bakti today.
Abdul Karim also said this issue has been around since the time of the late Chief Minister Pehin Sri Adenan Satem whereby some politicians had jumped over to PBB, leading to the other component parties to assert claims on the seats represented by the ‘hopping’ incumbents.
“However, for the sake of retaining peace within the GPS coalition, the component parties (cohere with the decision of the top leadership) and that is the beauty of GPS,” he added. — DayakDaily
