KUCHING, Nov 5 — Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan today said his party will not be deterred by its heavy defeat to Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) in yesterday’s Jepak state seat by-election, but instead will continue with its commitment and struggle for Sarawak. He said he believes that time will come when the people will rise up to support PBK.
Voon blamed money politics and the lack of funds for the defeat of PBK candidate Stevenson Joseph Sumbang to GPS Iskandar Turkee.
“For Sarawak politics, the manifesto is money, and you cannot move around without money,” he said when asked for comments on the outcome of the by-election.
He thanked the people in Jepak for having spent their time to come to vote in the by-election and congratulate Iskandar for his victory.
Sarawak People’s Aspiration Party (Aspirasi) president Lina Soo said her party accepted the results and congratulated the newly minted state lawmaker.
“We will do an internal post-mortem on the defeat in the by-election later,” she said when contacted.
Soo, however, praised the Election Commission and the police for performing their tasks and duties with professionalism.
“For our candidate Chieng Lea Phing, we applaud his bravery and putting up a good fight and upholding the democratic spirit,” she said.
Soo said both the candidates from Aspirasi and PBK suffered heavy losses in the by-election.
Iskandar, 54, secured 9,638 votes to win with a majority of 8,784 votes while Stevenson, 42, managed to receive 854 and 64-year-old Chieng garnered 431 votes. A total of 10,923 people voted in the Jepak by-election with a 48.57 per cent turnout.
The constituency has 22,804 voters comprising 22,761 ordinary voters and 43 police personnel.
The by-election was called following the death of incumbent Datuk Talip Zulpilip on September 15.
