Kota Kinabalu: Sabah DAP may be challenged in the Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan seats in GE15. Former ally Parti Warisan may give it a run for its money.
“It depends on who Warisan’s candidates will be. Urban voters may be more inclined towards a local Opposition party than a national one,” said Lee, a lecturer with Universiti Malaysia Sabah.
Since DAP had used Warisan’s logo in GE14, this had indirectly promoted Warisan to the urban voters in Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan, which have a mainly Chinese population.
Tenom, he pointed out, would be a lost cause for DAP as Warisan was no longer in play for their victory in the rural interior Tenom seat. Chinese make up 65pc of voters in the Kota Kinabalu parliament seat and slightly above 50pc in Sandakan.
Sabah DAP now has three parliament seats in the state – Sandakan, Kota Kinabalu and Tenom – while Warisan has seven, including Labuan. Candidates from the GRS-Barisan alliance failed to win any Chinese-majority state seats during the Sabah snap election in September 2020.
Another political observer, Tony Paridi Bagang, also foresees a tough fight ahead for both DAP and Warisan, adding that the split in Opposition votes might favour a GRS-Barisan candidate. “It’s very competitive, but I still see DAP as having the advantage,” he said, adding that this was based on voting patterns in the previous elections.
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