SUPP’s Padungan candidate Datuk Wee Hong Seng visits Dewan Badminton Kompleks Perumahan Polis Tabuan Jaya during early voting in Kuching December 14, 2021. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa
KUCHING, Dec 14 — Sarawak People’s United Party (SUPP) candidate for Padungan Datuk Wee Hong Seng today told his political rival Voon Lee Shan to stop making comments about the hierarchy within the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) coalition when he is not a member of the coalition.
Wee was responding to the Opposition politician’s remarks that Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) was calling the shots in GPS while the coalition’s three other components — SUPP, Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), and Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) — would be willing to concede their traditional seats in the Sarawak state election.
“I think as far as I’m concerned, every party or coalition has its own way of dealing with the party’s issues. I think the best thing is to mind your own business,” Wee told Malay Mail while visiting an early polling station in Tabuan Jaya here this morning.
The Kuching South City mayor dismissed Voon’s suggestion of simmering discord among the four GPS component parties.
“It’s like a marriage. We were together for such a long time. If the marriage is not good, we would have broken up a long time ago, but why are we still here? It’s not for convenience.
“It’s because we have been working together for such a long time and we understand each other and that is how it should be,” Wee said, alluding to the relationship among the four parties within GPS.
Voon, who is Parti Bumi Kenyalang president and the candidate for Batu Lintang, previously remarked that PBB president Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg’s involvement in deciding the GPS seat allocation for the election showed that SUPP had little decision-making power.
Wee had been picked as the Padungan candidate over two other more senior SUPP members Bong Lian Huan and Jong Yean Pin who had been recommended by the local Kuching branch.
There have also been grumbles from the grassroots over the selection of GPS candidates in two other seats traditionally contested by SUPP.
One of them is Dudong. SUPP president Dr Sim Kui Hian had said his party worked hard to prepare a candidate for the seat but in the end, GPS chose to field PDP president Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing instead.
The second seat is Mambong, which is being contested by Datuk Dr Jerip Susil who crossed from SUPP to PBB.
Dudong has always been a traditional SUPP seat and in the 2016 state election, it was won by Datuk Tiong Thai King, who resigned from SUPP to join PSB.