KUCHING: A local academic Associate Prof Dr Andrew Aeria of Faculty of Social Sciences, Unimas, said SUPP’s key problems lay in policies, not leadership.
“So SUPP is now led by the socalled new faces. Does the party come up with any new policies?
It makes no difference to me when SUPP is merely a ‘follower party’ (parti pengikut) in Sarawak Barisan Nasional.
“They are all followers and will agree to all policies drawn by Barisan Nasional leaders be they at Petrajaya or Putrajaya,” he said in an e-mail to The Borneo Post’s sister paper See Hua Daily News here yesterday.
Aeria felt that it was a let-down that new policies were not heard from the ‘new’ leader.
He noted that many ‘new’ leaders of the latest line-up came from the last committee and thereby missing the defi nition of ‘new’.
“I hold a pessimistic view of the ‘new’ leaders being able to revive the party. First of all, we must understand what revival means – it involves not only a change of leadership.
“SUPP should start asking itself ‘What policies are new? ’ or whether its policies are all drawn to blindly concord with the supreme leadership of Barisan Nasional.”
He pointed out that Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh had continued to challenge the legitimacy of the concluded Triennial Delegates Conference (TDC) and did not seem to be willing to reconcile.
He had not ruled out chances that Wong and his camp might break away from SUPP to form a new political party.
Should that happen, he said SUPP new president Datuk Seri Peter Chin’s effort to unite and rejuvenate the party would go down the drain.
“And SUPP will remain as a powerless party just like PRS and SPDP.”
Aeria said urban voters had rejected SUPP and it was odd for the party to have included defeated election candidates in the new leadership.
“Is it not weird that leaders rejected by voters were accepted i nt o t he new l e a d e r sh ip ?
Furthermore, it is prudent to remark that rural voters voted for Barisan Nasional and not SUPP.”
On Datuk Richard Riot being elected as deputy president, he observed that Bumiputeras had long been marginalised within SUPP.
Aeria said Riot’s new post might bring about some short-term benefi ts to the Bidayuh community but would not guarantee a bright future.
“SUPP still needs allocations from both state and federal government to reach out to the Bidayuh community. Question now remains whether Richard Riot is capable of bidding for funds.”