Tawau Umno division chief Ghazalie Ansing said the party will place a candidate to contest the seat in the 15th general election (GE15), after giving it up to allow PBS to contest it in 2013.
He said this proposal, which was passed during the division’s delegates meeting here today, was to show its support for party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Sabah BN chief Bung Moktar Radin for the coming GE15.
“It is time for Tawau Umno to reclaim the seat after handing it over to BN component parties previously,” he said at the meeting.
“This compromise has cost the welfare of the Malay and Islamic communities. No other party can bring changes except Umno.
“This is already reason enough to contest and we will demand for the seat come GE15,” he said.
Former BN component party PBS contested and won the seat in GE13 through Mary Yap Kain Ching but it was defeated by Sabah PKR chief Christina Liew in GE14.
Ghazalie said the party had also suffered greatly after GE14 when many leaders ditched Umno, except for leaders like Zahid and Bung.
“It took some real leadership to revive Umno and to eventually kick Pakatan Harapan out.
“I urge party members to support the agenda of looking after the people’s best interests and move forward,” he said.
Yesterday, Bung, who is also Sabah Umno chief, expressed readiness to reduce the number of parliamentary seats it will contest in the next general election so that there will be more seats available for other parties within the ruling Gabungan Rakyat Sabah.
Bung said the move was to ensure victory for the current government.
He said Sabah BN had allocated 14 seats for Umno to contest in the 2018 general election, with 10 seats given to its former coalition partners, PBS and Upko.
“But (now) we are ready to negotiate. We want to win because it is not about how many seats will be contested, but about how many seats we will win.”
He estimated that Umno would contest 10 to 12 seats.
There are 25 parliamentary seats in Sabah. In GE14, BN won 10, Warisan eight, PKR and DAP three each, and STAR one.