SARAWAK’S two Chinese-based rival parties, Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and United People’s Party (UPP), have agreed to form a consultative committee as they take the first step towards reconciliation.

To form the committee is one of six points the two parties have agreed on which are contained in the memorandum of understanding they signed this afternoon.

SUPP president Dr Sim Kui Hian and his UPP counterpart, Wong Soon Koh signed the MoU witnessed by Sarawak Barisan Nasional chairman Abang Johari Openg, at the end of the BN Supreme Council meeting at Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu headquarters in Petrajaya.

SUPP is a member of the ruling Barisan Nasional while UPP is pro-BN whose membership application has been blocked by SUPP.

Both parties have been included in the Sarawak BN Plus government.

The presidents and secretary-generals of the two parties will make up the four-man consultative committee whose mandate is “to work out the way towards reconciliation of both parties as well as to maintain constant communication to build up mutual trust, respect and to avoid any misunderstanding”.

The MoU states that SUPP and UPP agree to explore and take steps toward uniting the two parties into “a single larger political entity to have a stronger representation in Sarawak BN, with the eventual and ultimate intention of being part of Sarawak BN under SUPP”.

The rapprochement does not, for the moment, call for the disbandment of UPP which is made up of former SUPP members who sided with Wong in his unsuccessful campaign for the party’s presidency in 2011.

A sticking point the two parties will have to thrash out is the seven federal seats allotted to SUPP to contest in the general election.

UPP had indicated its interest in contesting Bandar Sibu, Lanang and Sarikei –  seats in and around its stronghold of Sibu.

Sim later told reporters that UPP nominated candidates must contest as SUPP candidates.

The chief minister announced last week that BN had ended the policy of fielding direct BN candidates, essentially candidates from non-BN parties contesting under the coalition symbol.

He said Chinese community leaders had in the last few months expressed desire to see the two parties to unite in order to better represent the interests of the Chinese community.

This, he said, was pertinent to the state’s pursuit of its lost rights, which were ratified in the Malaysia Agreement 1963.

In the last general election, SUPP lost six of the seven seats it contested – five to DAP and one to PKR. All six seats are urban, Chinese-majority seats. Its sole victory was the rural, predominantly Dayak seat of Serian, won by the party deputy president Richard Riot.

It’s a seat Riot has held for six terms.

There are 31 federal seats in Sarawak. – March 23, 2018.