KUCHING: SUPP president Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chan said the party had tried its best to put up with the ‘Bengoh issue’ for the sake of party unity and interest.
WE QUIT: Lee (seated centre) flanked by Chong (left) and Chang with some of the members showing the `Quit party membership of SUPP’ letter to the press.
He said this in a statement issued on Saturday evening, apparently as an immediate damage control to counter the move by 14 SUPP Bengoh Youth members who quit the party hours earlier.
Dr Chan, who is also deputy chief minister, said a recent meeting with several members of the Bengoh branch had arrived at a mutual understanding that whatever issues pertaining to the branch should be dropped as a solution to the issue.
He added that the meeting was an open discussion, and the party’s secretary-general Senator Datuk Sim Kheng Hui was also present.
“As requested by the Bengoh branch chairman Dr Jerip Susil, myself and Sim Kheng Hui met those few from the branch and after that the party central leadership worked out the problem with them,” said Dr Chan in the statement.
He said he was not taken aback by the decision of “those members” who decided to quit the party.
When contacted on Saturday, Dr Jerip said the latest development in his branch had caught him by surprise.
“I am really not aware of it (the group quitting the party) because they never informed me. Even when I talked to Liu Thian Leong (the branch secretary) yesterday (Friday), he never told me that,” Dr Jerip said.
He added that he would sit down with the group to persuade them to reconsider their decision and “sort things out.”
The Bengoh assemblyman said that the group had been his close ally, and he had no grudge against them.
Bengoh branch Youth chief Lee Chee Fui announced on Saturday that he and 13 other Youth members decided to quit due to dissatisfaction over the party’s central leadership.
He told a press conference that the failure of the party to implement the ‘SUPP Forward Plan 2006’ was among the key reasons for them to leave the party they once love so much.
The conference was also attended by its Youth secretary Ching Jit Leong and branch treasurer Chang Hon Hiung.
“We have lost confidence in the party central leadership. The many promises made by the central leadership were not fulfilled and we, SUPP in Bengoh, have been sidelined.
“And for that reason, we have decided to quit the party,” said Lee, saying that most of them had been in the party for about eight years.
He said the quit letter would be submitted to Sim after the conference.
Asked whether they would be joining other parties, Lee stressed they would not.
“We are not joining any political party, be they Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties or the opposition,” he asserted.
Lee pointed out that the group would not try to lure other party members to leave the party, adding that he would not respond to the showcause letter that was issued to him and Chong on June 30.