SARAWAK FOCUS: The Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) was the very first political party founded in Kuching in 1959 by my uncle, the late Ong Kee Hui, together with Stephen Yong and a number of their compadres, significantly Chan Siaw Hee, Yeo Cheng Hoe, Song Thian Cheok, Tieu Sung Seng, Ee Ghim Yam, Jonathan Bangau, William Hardin and Wan Modhzar Tuanku Mahmud.

It has seen its glory days when at the peak of its political fortunes the party, which was then a real multiracial force with leaders from all the main races in the state, had formed a coalition government with Party Bumiputera-Pesaka and Sarawak National Party (SNAP).

From its highs to its lowest point as of now, the party is reduced to just one parliamentary seat and two state seats, plus an appointed senator, who is the party president, Dr Sim Kui Hian.

Sim himself comes from an old established family – his father was the late Sim Kheng Hong, himself a former treasurer-general of SUPP and a former deputy chief minister; and who had  never lost an election during his lifetime.

Of the founding fathers of the state’s oldest party, it is only Sim who’s now left from the families of the ‘Old Guards’, as none from the Ong, Chan, Yong or Song families had produced any ‘political heirs’ to their respective dynasties.

For a brief period in time, Chan Seng Kai (son of Chan Siaw Hee) was the  mayor of Kuching; as did Song Swee Guan (son of Song Thian Cheok) before him.

Political fortunes ebb and flow and are as volatile as dynamite. If SUPP is to survive for one more state election, or one more generation – its fortunes are now at its peak as expectations are high for Sim to turn around the tide and stem this leaking ‘Titanic’ which many in the political arena has labelled the party.

In a way its current squabbles and upheaval with United People’s Party (UPP) is actually a blessing in disguise. It managed at one swift stroke to sever off what many consider as the old ‘rotting branch’ of the party, which in some people’s opinion was already infested to the core with the aging, the aged and the has-beens who have been considered by many to be ‘weary and tired deadwood’ as far as their political futures are concerned.

The leader of this breakaway party has himself been so much associated with the previous BN state leadership, that it appears his credibility level could at best be termed as dubious.

So what has Sim got to offer that could attract Chinese voters away (or back again) from the opposition parties of DAP and PKR?

He’s got a pedigree – he is an upright professional in his field and has personally saved or reformed many human lives as a practicing doctor and surgeon – and world famous as well in his specialist field of cardiology.

He is smart, politically savvy and speaks the local languages – all the main ones. He is a man of the people and he is very hard working, and he goes down to the ground (virtually whenever he has the free time outside of his work) and he talks to the people and find out about their problems, no matter how small or obscure. He tries to resolve them as well.

Sim has also managed to reinvigorate the youth factor in his party – he has seemingly taken out or lessen the ‘clique’-ness and ‘clan’-ness as well as the ‘territorial’ right of the old SUPP system – and infused the party with brave new intelligent leaders, media-friendly and approachable and fast to react and indeed are more pro-active than in any other period in its history.

For a long time it was an open secret within the party that it had been agreed that the leadership of the party be rotated on the basis of Kuching-Sibu-Miri, and thus the baton was sometimes passed to certain previous leaders who were not great but simply acceptable to this ‘rotation process’.

Political parties in these modern times are solely dependent on who’s at the helm – anyone seen as less than a good leader would greatly handicap them.

SUPP is Sarawak’s oldest political party – can we allow it to die off with a whimper without giving it at least one last chance to prove itself?

Can Sim alone make a difference to a party seen as being on its last legs? We must also ask ourselves this pertinent question – what difference can we make if we vote once again for either DAP or PKR and they are re-elected?

However it is quite certain that a majority of the rural seats will still go once again to another BN party and once again they may form the next state government – and thus the status quo remains.

What if, for a change, we now decide to vote for Sim and SUPP – maybe for one final time – would it really give us any sleepless nights?

At the worse, things will remain the same, at its best – who knows – he could be the one who will finally be able to make ‘the difference’.

By Edgar Ong

2-5-2015

60

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