Ting being cheered by fellow comrades after the result was announced.
MIRI: BN-SUPP’s Datuk Sebastian Ting won the battle of secretary-generals when he defeated Sarawak DAP secretary Alan Ling by a majority of 2, 112 votes in the Piasau constituency.
Ting who is SUPP secretary – general secured 7, 799 votes while Ling obtained 5, 687 votes in the straight fight.
The percentage of voter turnout was 64 per cent. There were 123 spoilt votes.
Speaking to reporters after returning officer (RO) Siti Suhana Rosli announced the result at 9.05pm at Dewan Dato’ Lee Teck Fook in SMK Chung Hua Miri, Ting expressed his gratitude to Mirians for giving him the chance to serve as their elected representative.
“As I have said ‘please give me’ a chance, now I say thank you to them for giving me this opportunity to do so. In fact, there are so many people I would like to thank including my wife and family as a whole for being at my side along the way, Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chan Hong Nam and Tan Sri Peter Chin Fah Kui and so many other friends whom I am not able to name and not forgetting my team who had helped out during the campaign. It was a tough campaign and we had braved it through together.”
Ting also took the opportunity to thank members of other BN component parties who were all there to help him during the campaign period.
When asked on the main factor that contributed to the win, Ting said the new leadership in the party and Adenan factor were very strong.
“Datuk Patinggi Adenan had helped draw Chinese votes when he announced that he would like to appoint a Chinese deputy chief minister. The message that he had conveyed was responded to by the Chinese community.
“More importantly, the Chinese sent a very clear message in responding to our slogan, ‘Safeguard Sarawak’, that they want the state government to be able to speak for Sarawak.”
“Now that they had given SUPP and BN the chance, we won’t let them down, we’ll go out to make sure that we work hard and if we don’t they can kick us out (in the next election).”