Arthur Kurup (left) presenting a memento to Joseph Kurup at the dinner.
KOTA KINABALU (March 11): Newly minted Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) president Datuk Arthur J Kurup urged all party members to continue to strengthen the party’s position all the way to the grassroots level.
He also stressed on the need to ensure that the party maintains the combination of senior and young leadership that can produce new as well as modern ideas in order to keep up with the times.
“We need a combination of experienced leadership with leaders from the younger generation and we are thankful that we have this combination in PBRS. We also need the involvement of more young leaders especially now with the voter eligibility age lowered to 18 years old,” said Arthur.
Speaking to reporters at PBRS’ 29th anniversary dinner here on Friday night, Arthur said that in his speech earlier, he reminded party members that they are now in a new political era and can no longer depend on what was done 20 to 30 years ago.
“We need to establish our own strength. As a local party in Sabah which is a component party in a national coalition that is Barisan Nasional, we need to establish our own strength in Sabah together with BN and at the same time work together in the Unity Government,” he said.
“PBRS will create its own strength in its efforts to move forward and not depend too much on BN alone,” he said and stressed that PBRS remains loyal to BN and has a strong unity among other party components.
“No one could predict that BN will win 30 parliamentary seats (15th General Election) and that we can be part of the government … all political predictions so far are wrong,” he added.
The current politics is and with the political situation being very dynamic at the moment PBRS needs a more dynamic approach in order to move forward to become a stronger party, the Pensiangan Member of Parliament said.
PBRS is one of the component parties of BN together with Umno, MCA and MIC.
The Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation also said that in order to gain more support, PBRS needs to maintain the integrity and loyalty factors that the party has been practicing all this while.
“The experience of 2018 (14th General Election) tested the loyalty of many in our party and BN itself.
PBRS is the only local party in Sabah that has remained loyal to BN since 1994.
“Whatever our situation, loyalty is a sign of our struggle and integrity as we have gone through the good and the bad times together. We need consistency in our struggles,” he said.
Arthur also spoke about the party’s rejuvenation as the 15GE witnessed 10.6 million or half of the registered voters consisting of young voters.
Therefore PBRS needs to take steps to attract the support of that group, he said adding, “we want fresh new ideas to take the party forward, young people can play a role in facilitating the rejuvenation process of the party. At the same time we need a combination of young and experienced leaders,” he said.
The rejuvenation process of PBRS, Arthur said, started when former president Tan Sri Joseph Kurup gave him the trust to take over the reins.
“I am very grateful to the party’s supreme council members because they welcome the efforts of rejuvenation. With the combination of experienced leaders and the young leaders, we will be on the right track,” said Arthur.
He also said that PBRS fully supports the Prime Minister in the efforts to eradicate poverty especially in Sabah and will give its full cooperation to the unity government.
During the dinner PBRS paid tribute to founder and former President Tan Sri Joseph who retired in January this year.