PARTI Bansa Dayak Sarawak Baru (PBDSB) defied Pakatan Harapan’s call to pull its candidate in Sri Aman as the party was the first to announce it is contesting the federal seat, said its Youth chief today.

Rapelson Richard Hamit, who is also elections director of the small non-aligned local party, said PBDSB had made it clear “from the beginning” that it will field a candidate in Sri Aman, therefore, it will not bow out to allow for a straight fight between PH and Barisan Nasional in the seat, as what the party has agreed to do in other constituencies.

PBDSB president Cobbold John is in a three-way fight for the Dayak-majority seat, which comprises 33,016 voters, 76% of whom are of Iban ethnicity.

He is up against BN incumbent Masir Kujat of Parti Rakyat Sarawak and PH’s Norina Umoi Utot of PKR.

Kujat, the caretaker deputy home minister who first won the seat in the 2004 elections, is aiming to win his third term in the 14th general election.

Rapelson said Cobbold deserves to contest, describing him as the “last Dayak defender”.

He said PBDSB – whose members include those formerly of the now deregistered Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak, and whose aim is to look after Dayak interests – has agreed to not contest some seats to preserve “Dayak unity”, and to avoid being accused of being a “BN agent” serving to split the votes in marginal seats.

GE14 will see the 56-year-old Cobbold, who is an oil palm smallholder and land rights activist, attempting for the seventh time to win a spot in either the state legislative assembly or Parliament.

Like the two candidates he is facing, Cobbold is an Iban from Sri Aman.

In the 2013 elections, Kujat beat PKR’s Nicholas Mujah Ason, independent candidate Donald Lawan and the Sarawak Workers Party’s Wilfred Landong to win the seat for the second time. – April 29, 2018.