By Remy Majangkim
KOTA KINABALU: Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) N16 Karambunai exemplifies the missed opportunity to do the right thing during Warisan’s tenure in 2018 and its subsequent defeat in 2020.
DUN N16 Karambunai, located north of Kota Kinabalu, covers 92.5 sq km and has registered voters ranging from 19,000 to 22,000. Historically, Karambunai was a Barisan Nasional (BN UMNO) stronghold under Datuk Jainab Ahmad from 2004 to 2018.
In the 2018 state election, a new face emerged after 14 years of Barisan Nasional dominance.
Warisan won the seat by a significant margin; thus, the new DUN is Azhar Mattusin of Warisan.
The people of Karambunai have high hopes for Warisan to amend the injustice, most notably done to the people of Kampung Malawa.
Who are these people? They are the biggest native landowners who had their land taken by the state government in the early 1990s, now the existing site of Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP).
They were promised compensation in the form of land, which is now known as Kampung Malawa. However, since the day their houses were built and these families moved into their new residences, every political party has promised to provide them with land titles. To this day, those promises remain unfulfilled.
How does it compare with Warisan? There was a discussion that the residents of Kampung Malawa will again be moved to a new site to make way for the extension of KKIP.
Letters of objection were sent to the sitting DUN but were not acknowledged or replied to until his unceremonious defeat in 2020.
The villagers were again upset with this development and cited that all politicians are the same; they cannot be trusted once they hold power.
A lesson to be learnt here is that a constituency should not be run on autopilot.
Those elected should acknowledge the issues at hand and dedicate a significant amount of time to their areas. While BN UMNO is making strides to win the hearts and minds of the people in Kampung Malawa, others are falling short in these efforts
