CHONG Chieng Jen has given up the Kota Sentosa seat, which he had held for three terms, to contest the troubled Padungan seat in the upcoming Sarawak elections.

Padungan incumbent, Wong King Wei, pulled off a shock move when he abruptly resigned from DAP in July last year over a reported fallout with Chong to declare himself an independent assemblyman. 

“It’s only right that as a leader, I explain to the people what happened. 

“They voted for him who represented the party,” Chong said after unveiling the six candidates who would be contesting in seats in and around Kuching.

Chong withheld the names of the party’s candidates to the six seats and two in Sibu last Friday when he presented letters of authority to 18 candidates “for strategic reasons”.

That strategic reason is to find a candidate who could take on the first-term incumbent, Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) chairman Dr Sim Kui Hian.

The party has now decided to field Bandar Kuching MP Kelvin Yii, regarded one of the party’s young rising stars, to take on Sim in which DAP hoped to turn Batu Kawa into a battle ground on who is better able to manage the Covid-19 epidemic.

Yii chairs the parliamentary select committee (PSC) on health, science and innovation while Sim, the state’s housing and local government minister, is an adviser to the state disaster management committee which oversees the management of the Covid-19 epidemic in the state.

Chong said the disaster committee’s management of the epidemic in the last few months had been poor and peppered with “confusing SOP”.

He also blamed the committee for causing flight tickets from the peninsula to Sarawak to become expensive as it had reduced the frequency of flights to restricted the number of arrivals into the state.

He said Yii’s experience in chairing the select committee is “very much needed and helpful” in propelling him to the state assembly.

Political newbie Michael Kong will take over from Chong in Kota Sentosa while Violet Yong was again nominated to defend the Pending seat for the fourth time.

A couple of “old faces” who again got the nod are Abdul Aziz Isa in Batu Kawa and Leslie Ting Xiang Zhi in Stakan.

Both contested in the last election and were defeated. – December 2, 2021.