BEAUFORT, Jan 18 — According to the unofficial Election Commission (EC) count, Barisan Nasional (BN) has re-captured the Kimanis parliamentary seat, giving the coalition its fifth win out of ten by-elections since GE14.
This will be the fifth time BN has won the seat since 2004 if GE14’s result is taken into consideration.
In the unannounced results from the EC, the vote tally at 7.20pm showed Umno’s Datuk Mohamad Alamin with 11,992 votes compared to Parti Warisan Sabah’s Datuk Karim Bujang’s 10,200 votes with only three out of 70 ballot boxes left.
The tally had BN leading from the start, at first by a few hundred before it pulled ahead significantly.
The voter turnout of 76 per cent at 4pm, exceeded the EC’s target of 70 per cent.
Returning officer Jupari @Jupry Etok is due to announce the winner when full official results are out.
BN has before this won four out of the nine by-elections held in the country so far — Semenyih, Rantau, Cameron Highlands and Tanjung Piai.
Last night, an MCA-linked research group said the Kimanis by-election was a close race but predicted a win for Mohamad against Karim.
Strategic Analysis and Policy Research Institute (Insap) deputy chairman Pamela Yong said their survey indicated Mohamad had the bigger support from the Muslim and non-Muslim Bumiputeras.
The Kimanis seat was declared vacant after the Federal Court on December 2 upheld the Election Court’s ruling, nullifying former Umno foreign minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman’s victory in the 14th General Election (GE14) in May 2018.
In GE14, Anifah won the seat on an Umno ticket with a 156-vote majority, securing 11,942 votes against Karim’s 11,786 votes while another candidate, Jaafar Ismail of Parti Harapan Rakyat Sabah, obtained 1,300 votes.
Anifah later quit Umno in September 2018 but continued to back the party in this by-election.
