KUCHING: Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) president Tan Sri Peter Chin says his party may take legal action against United People’s Party (UPP) because the new party’s name is almost similar to SUPP.
Chin added that SUPP’s lawyers were studying whether there was any legal ground to sue UPP for using that name.
”At the moment, they are looking at rules and regulations relating to the approval of the party by the Registrar of Societies (ROS) with the name that is very closely associated with ours,” Chin said when met at Santubong MP Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar’s Hari Raya Aidilfitri open house at the old DUN building yesterday.
Four SUPP assemblymen — Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh (Bawang Assan), Dr Johnical Rayong Ngipa (Engkilili), Ranum Mina (Opar) and Datuk Dr Jerip Susil (Bengoh) — left the party on May 15 to join Party Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras) .
However, on July 17 they quit Teras to join UPP which was apparently approved by the ROS on July 14.
On another development, Chin said he did not foresee the repeat of mass boycott by their members in the run-up to the party’s triennial delegates’ conference (TDC) like what happened in 2011.
“Preparation is smooth for the TDC. I don’t foresee any repeat like 2011 because those who are against us and not happy with us, have gone out,” he said.
The TDC will be held on Aug 23 and 24 while branches and sub-branches as well as respective youth and woman sections elections were proceeding at the moment, with Aug 3 as their last election date, he said.
Chin said there were some minor complaints but they had formed a central election committee to look into the complaints after the last day of election.