George Lo
KUCHING: The decision to terminate the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between United People’s Party (UPP) and Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) was made during the UPP triennial delegates conference (TDC) held on last Saturday, July 7, said UPP secretary-general George Lo.
Lo said UPP officially informed SUPP in writing this morning, Monday (July 9) which was the earliest opportunity.
“It is regrettable that the SUPP secretary-general (Datuk Sebastian Ting) jumped the gun and prematurely condemned UPP for not informing them when the decision by the UPP TDC was made over the weekend,” he said in a statement today.
Lo was responding to Ting’s statement yesterday that there was simply no courtesy at all from UPP leaders to inform SUPP about the decision (to terminate the memorandum of understanding).
Ting said: “The main objective for the MoU was to allow both SUPP and UPP to work together, with an ultimate aim for UPP to eventually unite under SUPP’s banner so as to promote political unity among Sarawak community to further strengthen Sarawak’s position in the Federation of Malaysia”.
Ting also said SUPP had learned something from this episode and would be very cautious in the future.
The MoU made between SUPP and UPP prior to the 14th general election was an affirmative response and commitment by both parties to the Sarawak Chinese community which had been appealing for more political representatives in the Sarawak state government, Ting pointed out.