IN Malaysia’s new political landscape, the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and United People’s Party (UPP) could go the same way MCA and Gerakan did in the 14th general election.

“It’s the new political reality. SUPP will be wiped out in the next state elections,” said University of Tasmania political analyst James Chin.

“Sarawak Chinese will go along with peninsula Chinese and give Pakatan Harapan a chance (to rule the state).”

SUPP and UPP are state-based Chinese components of Barisan Nasional.

SUPP had gone into GE14 confidently, buoyed by its success in the 2016 state elections, where the party made quite a splash by wresting four seats from DAP and winning a new seat.

GE14 results, however, showed that Sarawak Chinese voters had rejected the 61-year-old party in all the six Chinese-majority parliamentary seats it contested.

SUPP, which is the state’s oldest party, had been confident of winning Stampin, Sibu, Sarikei and Miri.

It fielded president Dr Sim Kui Hian for a straight fight with state DAP chief Chong Chieng Jen in Stampin, which SUPP had lost in the 2013 general election. The confidence during GE14 was based on the results of the 2016 state elections, where it won two of the three state seats that make up the federal constituency – Batu Kitang and Batu Kawa.

The third went to DAP.

“That’s a 60% sure win,” former Youth leader Tan Kai had said.

Chong’s win by 14,221 votes stunned SUPP.

UPP, a splinter of SUPP, fielded two candidates, who contested as BN-SUPP candidates in a pre-election arrangement engineered by Sarawak BN.

Chin said BN’s electoral setbacks and near demise also signal the end of the two parties’ efforts to kiss and make up.

“The paper on which that deal was signed is now toilet paper,” he said, referring to the Memorandum of Mutual Understanding that the two parties had inked amid much fanfare on March 23.

The parties had agreed to collaborate “to ensure the victory” of all Sarawak BN candidates in parliamentary seats, and “to bring about greater unity within the (Chinese) community in the interest of Sarawak”.

“The deal was made based on the understanding that SUPP and UPP could win some seats. They didn’t. Since it did not work, the deal is toilet paper.

“SUPP is now the ‘Sarawak Unhappy People’s Party’.” – May 26, 2018.