KUCHING: For someone who was badly beaten in an election and now hitting hard at his nemesis, Ali Adap looks like he has just returned from the dead and is seeking revenge.
That was how PBB Batu Danau Youth chief Elvis Mathew saw the sudden emergence of Ali, the Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) Batu Danau branch chairman, who took issues with BN Backbenchers’ chairman Paulus Palu Gumbang for defending the Second Trunk Road (STR) project.
Elvis said Ali stood as an Independent against Paulus in a one-to-one contest in 2016 state election and was trounced well and good, losing by 2, 939 votes.
According to Elvis, it was Paulus’ biggest win since winning the seat for the first time in the state election of 2006. That year Paulus polled 2,961 votes against SNAP’s Christopher Sawan Jiram’s 1,699, to win with a 1,262-vote majority.
Since that first win, Paulus has never looked back. In his first defence of Batu Danau in 2011 he defeated two others in a three-cornered fight. Paulus polled 3,776 votes to PKR Lau Liak Koi’s 1,348 and SNAP Lawrence Cosmas Sunang Simpang’s 140.
“By 2016 Paulus had further cemented his stranglehold over Batu Danau, thanks to Ali, whose defeat proved that fact and which consigned him to quietude until he appeared among 13 others on March 7 2019 to announce he was joining PSB,” Elvis said.
According to Elvis, Ali never quit Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS); he was expelled from the party for standing as an Independent. His expulsion was announced by then PRS sec-gen Datuk Wilfred Nissom on April 27 2016, 10 days before polling on May 7.
“This therefore is the Ali Adap who has questioned Paulus’ defence of STR but at the same time wanted only Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr James Jemut Masing, the Minister of Infrastructure and Ports Development, to explain the “extravagant cost” of the STR.
“Ali thinks too highly of his position as PSB Batu Danau branch chairman and he is raising too many issues. He should perhaps ask himself, if PSB isn’t merely creating issues and expecting GPS to find answers to them?”
On Ali’s claims of spending his own money to fund road projects in Batu Danau, Elvis said if it were true Ali was creating a world of his own in Batu Danau, digging into “my own private fund” to create a mountain out of a molehill.
Referring to Ali’s contention that Paulus might not stand come the next state election because the seat belongs to Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), which Paulus had left for PBB, Elvis said: “It is no business of his or his new-found party’s to worry about Paulus’ future as a candidate.
“Ali is better advised to look at himself to see if his sudden re-emergence isn’t going to be his second chance to help prove yet again that Paulus has won three straight elections not without any good reason.”
