SARAWAK Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg has said his predecessor Adenan Satim’s  son will contest the Tanjong Datu seat in the upcoming December 18 state polls.

He said Azizul Annuar Adenan will take over from his mother, Jamilah Anu, who has elected to retire.

Abang Johari said Jamilah, who won the seat – which fell vacant on the death of Adenan on January 11, 2017 – in a by-election on February 18.

“She has expressed her desire to withdraw. I also want to have young people.

“I think it’s only appropriate we give way (for) his son to continue (his father’s vision for Lundu and Sematan to be a tourism place),” he said during a visit to Lundu today.

The chief minister, in thanking Jamilah for her four years of service, acknowledged that it was not an easy decision for her to make when he asked her if she would like to continue her husband’s unfinished work by standing as a candidate in the by-election.

“(It’s) not easy to decide during that period when her husband just passed away.”

Abang Johari added that Jamilah had performed well in the four years.

On Azizul, Abang Johari said “he is well prepared” to take over from his mother.

Jamilah won the by-election in a landslide victory, garnering 96.5% of the 6, 811 votes cast, in the by-election.

She polled 6,573 votes to see off Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak Baru’s Rapelson Richard Hamit (130 votes) and STAR’s Johnny Bob Aput (108) for a 6,443-vote majority.

Adenan, who succeeded Abdul Taib Mahmud as Sarawak’s fifth chief minister of Sarawak in 2014, died of a reported heart complication on January 11, 2017.

Most Sarawak folk know Adenan simply as Tok Nan and his popularity was such that he crushed DAP and the Pakatan Harapan coalition it led in the 2016 election. – December 1, 2021.