GABUNGAN Parti Sarawak (GPS) will field 14 new faces in the general election, coalition chairman and Sarawak Premier Abang Johari Openg announced today.

Abang Johari also put an end to speculation by confirming veteran Santubong MP and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) Wan Junaidi Tunku Jaafar, and Batang Lupar MP Rohani Karim will not be defending their seats.

Instead, Nancy Shukri will stand in Santubong in place of Wan Junaidi, who has been the MP for the constituency since 2004.

Novice Rodiyah Sapiee will replace Nancy in Batang Sadong, according to Abang Johari.

The 44 year-old is one of two new female faces among GPS’ 31 candidates.

Abang Johari said the GPS line-up for the election is a mixture of veterans, mature and young politicians.

Another new face, Mohamad Shafizan Kepli, has been picked to defend Batang Lupar, which PBB has held for seven terms since the 1990 general election when Wan Junaidi wrested it from then Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) president Daniel Tajem Miri.

At 37, Shafizan is also the youngest of the GPS candidates.

The other new female face is Parti Rakyat Sarawak women’s chief Doris Brodie, who will challenge defector Masir Gujat in the Dayak-majority Sri Aman constituency.

Masir, soon after winning on a Sarawak Barisan Nasional-PRS ticket in 2018, jumped to the new state-based opposition Parti Sarawak Bersatu, later quitting that party to become an independent.

PRS president Joseph Salang is to stand in Julau, a seat he had held for four terms between 1999 and 2018, before losing to current Parti Bangsa Malaysia president Larry Sng in the last general election.

Sng has said he will defend Julau, where 93% of the voters are Iban.

SUPP’s sole MP, Richard Riot, will be GPS’s longest serving parliamentarian if he wins in Serian for the eighth time.

The 71-year-old first won the seat in the 1990. Riot, who had served as special envoy of the prime minister to east Asia, would not be drawn on possible retirement from politics.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” he told The Malaysian Insight. – November 3, 2022.