Abdul Ghapur Salleh

Abdul Ghapur bin Salleh (21 March 1943 – 4 July 2023) was a Malaysian politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Kalabakan from March 2004 to May 2018. He was a member of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

Before entering federal politics, Abdul Ghapur was active in Sabah state politics, initially as a member of the Sabah People's United Front (commonly known as BERJAYA). He joined UMNO when it moved into the state in the early 1990s and was a Deputy Chief Minister in the Barisan Nasional state government between 1995 and 1997.

Political career
Abdul Ghapur was elected unopposed to federal Parliament in 2004, for the newly created seat of Kalabakan on the border between Malaysia and Indonesia in East Sabah. In 2008, after his re-election (again unopposed), he was appointed a Deputy Minister for Resources and Natural Environment by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, only to resign eight days later. Later that year he openly criticised the BN government in Parliament for overlooking the needs of Sabah and Sarawak states, which had voted resoundingly in favour of BN in the 2008 election. He again spoke out against the federal government for what he considered to be its slow response to the invasion of part of eastern Sabah by Filipino militants in 2013. At the same time, he criticised UMNO's internal election process as being open to corruption, claiming that "people will do anything just to get on the Supreme Council even if it’s very expensive".

Death
Abdul Ghapur died from kidney failure on 4 July 2023, at the age of 80.

Honours

 * Sabah :
 * MY-SAB Order of Kinabalu - PGDK.svg Commander of the Order of Kinabalu (PGDK) – Datuk (1994)
 * MY-SAB Order of Kinabalu - SPDK.svg Grand Commander of the Order of Kinabalu (SPDK) – Datuk Seri Panglima (2005)