THE deputy president of the United People’s Party (UPP), the pro-Barisan Nasional outfit formed by Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) “rebels”, today strongly hinted that they will return to SUPP.

“Whatever it is, we have to be subservient to the instruction (of Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg),” said Dr Jerip Susil, when asked to comment on Abang Johari’s call at the opening of his Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu’s triennial delegates’ conference on Saturday for the “blue shirts to start wearing the yellow shirt”.

The “blue shirts” refer to UPP members, who often wear the BN shirt to show their loyalty to the ruling coalition, even though UPP is not a BN component, while the “yellow shirt” is worn by SUPP members, as it is the party’s colour.

“That’s his instruction,” said the state assistant transport minister when launching a state-level road safety campaign, in conjunction with the Chinese New Year, at the Kuching Sentral bus terminal.

On when they would make the return, and how, Dr Jerip said the questions would be answered only after they had met the chief minister over the matter.

“It’s his instruction. Whatever it is, we have to be subservient to the instruction. We will go talk with him, and we will wait for further instructions.

“We will wait and see. I’m sure the chief minister has a formula.”

He said he would not speculate whether the move would happen before the 14th general election, adding that the return of all UPP members back to SUPP “is what the chief minister has in mind”.

“What we have in mind is what the chief minister has in mind. We need to be responsive to what he has in mind.”

Dr Jerip was one of three non-Chinese assemblymen in SUPP who had aligned themselves with former party deputy secretary-general Wong Soon Koh in the tumultuous 2013 party polls.

The others were Johnical Rayong Ngipa (Engkilili) and Ranum Mina (Opar).

In the contest for the presidency, Wong claimed that branch elections held to select delegates to attend the triennial delegates’ conference were rigged to favour his opponent, former energy, green technology and water minister Peter Chin Fah Kui.

Believing that the party was refusing to look into the matter, Wong withdrew from the contest for president in protest, and lodged a complaint with the Registrar of Societies (RoS).

When RoS found no evidence to support his allegations, Wong and his supporters resigned from SUPP en masse and formed UPP.

Former chief minister Adenan Satem retained Wong and Dr Jerip in his so-called “BN Plus state cabinet”, but the move led to fights over seats, including in the 2016 state polls.

SUPP claimed that the seats Wong and three UPP assemblymen held were those allocated for the party as a BN component.

UPP, however, refused to give up the seats, saying the reps were pro-BN, and as incumbents, they were “winnable candidates”.

The BN solution was then to have the UPP reps fielded as “BN direct candidates”. – February 12, 2018.