Vivian surpassed her late father’s majority win by 1,423 votes.

The much-anticipated Sandakan by-election has finally ended with DAP’s Vivian Wong Shir Yee succeeding her late father Wong Thien Fatt as the parliamentary member of Sandakan.

The primary fight in the five-cornered battle for Sandakan parliamentary seat is between DAP and PBS. Vivian secured a landslide win by receiving 16,012 votes out of the 21,595 total ballots cast. Her rival Datuk Linda Tsen Thau Lin, representing PBS, only gathered 4,491 votes.

Despite the low turnout rate (54.4%), Vivian still managed to capture Sandakan with a majority of 11,521 votes.

Compared to GE-14 results, Sandakan had a higher turnout rate during the general election with 71.9%, which was 17.5% higher than the 2019 Sandakan by-election. Still, Vivian surpassed her late father’s majority win by 1,423 votes.

Additionally, Sabah Chief Minister Shafie Apdal said Vivian’s majority win could be higher if the turnout was better. He added that the big win in Sandakan proved that the local voters support the Warisan-led state government.

“UMNO no longer had any effect on Muslim voters who came out very strongly in support of the DAP candidate,” said Shafie.

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