55th PARTY ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS BY 5 MIRI BRANCHES ON 29th JUNE, 2014

suppadmin | June 29, 2014

SPEECH BY TAN SRI PETER CHIN FAH KUI, PRESIDENT OF SUPP ON THE OCCASION OF 55th PARTY ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS BY 5 MIRI BRANCHES ON 29th JUNE, 2014.

Good evening and welcome to Miri’s 55th Party Anniversary celebrations. It is so good to see so many of our leaders and members from far and near are gathered here to participate in this very important and yet meaningful event.

The month of June is a significant time for our Party. This year we are celebrating our Party’s 55th Anniversary and Party Central kicked off the event with a Flag Raising ceremony at Party Central Headquarters in Kuching followed by a Seminar. The month of June is now almost over so tonight’s event is one of the last few functions to celebrate our Party’s 55th Anniversary celebrations.

I am most happy to note that many of our SUPP branches, both constituency as well as non-constituency, have already organised their 55th Anniversay functions. In particular, I am most elated to note that our Sibu SUPP Branch had done a splendid job to organise a 112 tables dinner to celebrate the event. It goes to show that SUPP Sibu is “alive and kicking”! Here I like to congratulate all our Branches leaders who demonstrated their “love” for the Party by organising events at their Branch level.

Fellow Comrades, we have a very good reason to celebrate our Party’s 55th Anniversary! On 30th April, exactly 2 month ago, just before our CWC Meeting at Party Headquarters was to commence, we received by fax three letters from office of the Registrar of Societies, Putrajaya informing that: 1) appeals from Bekenu and Piasau SUPP Branches had been accepted by the Minister of Home Affairs; 2) all actions by way of investigations to cancel the registration of SUPP by the Registrar of Societies would stopped. The good news conveyed by these three letters meant that SUPP had been given the all clear; therefore, despite the complaints of irregularities lodged against the 15 SUPP Branches, the Triennial Delegates Conference and all proceedings that were carried out on 11th December, 2011 were legal and completely cleared by the Minister of Home Affairs and the Registrar of Societies. These decisions could not have come at a better time for our Party as this year (2014) is the year that our Party is mandated to hold the Triennial Delegates Conference. It is important that we should stick to the democratic process of electing our Branch and Central leaders as required by our Party’s Constitution for without this process, our Party will not be able to function normally.

Yet I must quickly point out that recently seven (7) former members of our Party (three Members of Council Negeri, one former MP, one Council Chairman and two Political Secretaries) took an unprecedented step of asking the High Court of Kuala Lumpur for a Judicial Review of the above decisions made by the Registrar of Societies. What is the intention of these former members? What are they trying to achieve? Surely and it is clear that what these people want is to ask the Court to overturn or reverse the decisions of the Registrar of Societies. If they get what they are asking for, does this mean SUPP is to be deregistered? As Party President, I will say the intention of these people is bad because they want the ROS to cancel the registration of the Party. Here let me assure all members, Party Central will take appropriate legal steps to ensure such a court action cannot succeed. For your information, applying for Judicial Review in the High Court does not prevent our Party from taking action or carrying on with the Triennial Annual Meetings at Branch level nor the Triennial Delegates Conference at Central level. Please do not listen to rumours being spread that our Party elections will be affected.

On another aspect, Party Central had acted immediately and that was to sack all these seven people from the Party since the Party cannot have members whose actions are against the interests of the Party.

SUPP belongs to all of us and does not belong to a particular leader or member. SUPP is not the property of any group within the Party. Most of us are clear about this. Unfortunately, there are some members or leaders who think they can make use of the Party for their own interests, then I say to them they should think properly first. SUPP has been able to survive for 55 years because our past leaders have been unselfish and struggled for the bigger interests of the general public. My advise to these people is to follow what Abraham Lincoln (USA’s first President) said: “You can fool some people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time”.

On this note, I will end by calling all SUPP members in all our Branches to remain loyal to the Party; participate fully in the democratic processes to elect your leaders and delegates at your Branch level in July and then participate at the Party’s Triennial Delegates Conference in Kuching in August. Let us show our unity and solidarity.

SAATI, SAATI, SAATI.