Chiew (seated middle) and other SPDP Women wing central committee members during the press conference.
KUCHING: The Women wing of Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) wishes to see that SPDP is given the two newly created seats of Samalaju and Mulu during the coming state election.
Its chief Datuk Chiew Yen Chew said this is because SPDP has many members and massive support in the two constituencies.
At the same time, she stressed that the wing fully supported party president Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing’s declaration that only SPDP nominated candidates get to stand in its eight traditional seats; namely Tasik Biru, Krian, Meluan, Pakan, Bekenu, Marudi, Batu Danau and Ba Kelalan.
“We hope and wish for another two seats to be distributed to us namely Samalaju and Mulu. Our potential candidates have already moved around, and so are the potential candidates lined up for our eight traditional seats.
“As far as we are concerned, these potential candidates are our very winnable candidates,” she told reporters after
chairing the SPDP Women wing’s central committee meeting at the party headquarters here recently.
When told that fellow Barisan Nasional component Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) had staked a claim on Samalaju, Chiew said the party was aware of this and hoped the overlapping claims can be resolved in the spirit of ‘merger of minds’.
“Through the ‘merger of minds’, we can always talk out anything,” she said.
She also said the party regularly carried out ‘Meet-The-People’ sessions and touch-base programmes in many rural areas in the party’s traditional seats involving the potential candidates.
“From our perspective and experience, our potential candidates are very popular and well-liked by the people. For example, Datu Dr Pengguang Manggil, our potential candidate in Marudi, is popular and enjoys massive support there,” she said, adding SPDP also worked very closely with other BN components in their respective areas.
On the impasse over the distribution of seats between SPDP and Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras), Chiew said SPDP was hopeful that there could still be a way out if every component party remained true to the BN spirit of comradeship and unity.
“You have to accept that as far as we are concerned, it would only be justified that the BN candidates chosen shall
be from the BN parties themselves. And in Sarawak, there are only four BN components; namely PBB, SUPP, PRS and SPDP,” she said.
She also said SPDP Women wing members were all very excited with the proposed nomination and polling dates on April 18 and 30 respectively for the state election as announced by Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem recently.
With the election now drawing nearer, she called on all Sarawakians to give their full support to Adenan to fight for more autonomy for Sarawak.
“SPDP Women support the Chief Minister’s move to negotiate with the federal government on the devolution of power and more autonomy for Sarawak. We believe the Chief Minister will go through phases of negotiation to achieve greater autonomy.
“So voters must give him a full mandate, so that he will be in a stronger position to negotiate our rights with the federal government,” she said.
To a question, she revealed that SPDP Women wing had already submitted their proposed list of potential candidates but said the final decision would be left to the party’s top leaders.
She nonetheless expressed the wing’s wish to see greater women representation in politics and hoped that one of the posts for political secretary to the chief minister allocated to the party would be given to a SPDP women member.
“We have a lot of very capable women leaders in the party,” she said, adding SPDP currently has more than 42,400 women members.