Ex-beauty queen faces 5 male candidates in fight for Sabah parliamentary seat
In Sabah, former beauty queen Jo-anna Henley Rampas of Parti Warisan will run for the Tuaran parliamentary seat in a six-cornered fight.
Commenting that she is the only rose among the thorns, the 33-year-old said “it’s high time to have more women representatives, women’s voices” in Malaysian politics.
“We know for a fact that in Sabah, we have only 9 per cent women in the state legislative assembly,” she said in a mix of English and Malay after submitting her nomination papers on Saturday.
“And in terms of Parliament, we have seen only 14 per cent women.”
The deputy chief of Warisan Wirawati, the party’s young women’s movement, also vowed to fight for Sabahans’ rights to have their state restored as an equal partner in the federation, in accordance with the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
Ms Rampas made her electoral debut in 2018 when she ran for the state seat of Kiulu, which is part of the Tuaran constituency.
She lost to Datuk Joniston Bangkuai from Parti Bersatu Sabah, which was then aligned with the Barisan Nasional coalition.
The former rivals will meet again as they vie for the parliamentary seat of Tuaran on Nov 19, along with incumbent MP Wilfred Madius Tangau from United Progressive Kinabalu Organisation, Mr Muminin Kalingkong from Parti Pejuang Tanah Air, and two independent candidates – Mr Bobby Lewat and Datuk Noortaip Suhaili.
Born to a British father and Malaysian mother, who is a Kiulu native, Ms Rampas caught media attention for the first time when she was crowned the 2007 winner of Unduk Ngadau, a high-profile beauty pageant and cultural event in Sabah.
In 2009, she took part in Bintang RTM, a long-running televised singing contest, and came in second. Then, she left Sabah to pursue a bachelor’s degree in law at the University of London, followed by a master’s degree in international law at the University of the West of England.
According to her LinkedIn profile, she has worked as a model for TV and print advertisements, personal fitness trainer, and music content editor in Britain for the now defunct-Omnifone, an early player in the music streaming business.
Ms Rampas has said that her entry into politics was no surprise.
Her grandfather Rampas Gumpai was a native chief who played a key role in the initial development of Kiulu. Her mother Sulah Rampas had contested for a state seat in 1994, and her uncle Louis Rampas was a three-term state assemblyman in Kiulu.
Married to a doctor, Ms Rampas gave birth to a daughter in 2020.
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