KUCHING, Aug 9 – Leaders of the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and their dissidents in the United People’s Party (UPP) should stop their bickering and start talking about uniting themselves for the sake of Chinese unity in the state, Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem said here tonight. He said the two parties should work out some sort of an agreement and to look into the bigger struggle of Barisan Nasional.
“We are facing a formidable political enemy and you can regain the constituencies (that SUPP lost in the last state and parliamentary elections) if you stop the bickerings,” he said when speaking at SUPP’s 55th anniversary celebration dinner here.
According to him, by his calculations, SUPP could win back the seats that they had lost in the past elections based on the support that had been shown by the Chinese community in the recent by-election in Balingian. “But if you continue to bicker, the chances (of winning in elections) will be slim,” he said. SUPP has been troubled by internal squabbles after the last state and parliamentary elections that had led to four of their elected representatives, led by former deputy secretary-general Datuk Seri Wong Soon Koh, to leave the party.
Soon Koh and his allies at first joined Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras)
which is led by former Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) president Tan Sri William Mawan Ikom before forming UPP.
Adenan, who is also the Sarawak Barisan Nasional chairman, said although it had been the principle of BN not to meddle into the internal affairs of the component parties, he would step in should such affairs weakened the coalition.
Likening SUPP as a long time friend in BN, he said the party had made great contributions to the state’s politics. “We stand by our friends but we also tell our friends what we don’t like about them in order to be true friends,” he added.
– BERNAMA
