SARAWAK United People’s Party (SUPP) president Dr Sim Kui Hian today deflected questions on a memorandum of understanding between the party and former members who are now part of the breakaway United People’s Party (UPP).

“MoU? What MoU?” he said when asked by reporters about the matter at the end of SUPP’s central working committee meeting in Kuching.

“Oh, that MoU. We’ll discuss that tomorrow,” he said, referring to the state Barisan Nasional supreme council meeting scheduled to be held in the afternoon.

He said the matter was never raised in today’s meeting.

“No need to discuss. What is there to discuss? The seven seats belong to SUPP. If not SUPP, then who?”

It is said that the MoU contains a deal for UPP to contest in SUPP seats in the 14th general election.

On Saturday, UPP Youth chief Johnichal Rayong said the MoU was to have been signed on Sunday, but it had been postponed at the last minute.

The Engkilili assemblyman, who was one of five lawmakers who left for the offshoot party in the aftermath of SUPP’s contentious 2011 polls, had told reporters that the MoU is linked to the two parties’ “reconciliation” drive.

Dr Sim, on the same day, told The Malaysian Insight that the MoU is mere “speculation”.

The Chinese-based SUPP, which is the state’s oldest party, and UPP have come under increasing pressure to reconcile, with UPP urged to disband and have its members return to SUPP.

The fracture in SUPP started to appear following a fight for the leadership between former president Peter Chin and former deputy secretary-general and Sibu branch chief Wong Soon Koh.

Both had sought to succeed Dr George Chan, who stepped down after losing his seat in the 2011 state election.

Wong had said there were irregularities in the election at several branches, in the lead-up to the triennial delegates’ conference.

Alleging that party leaders were siding with Chin and turning a blind eye to his claims, Wong filed a complaint with the Registrar of Societies.

However, in 2014, RoS said it found no such irregularities, and the party was not deregistered.

This led to the resignation of Wong and his supporters, including the majority of the party’s Dayak assemblymen.

When SUPP blocked UPP’s BN membership application, the party continued its pro-BN stance.

For the 2016 state election, the ruling coalition came up with a formula to end the tussle for seats between the two parties, by fielding UPP incumbents as “direct BN candidates”.

Chief Minister and state BN chairman Abang Johari Openg on Saturday said BN is putting an end to the practice, and will not field such candidates in GE14.

This kills any hope that UPP has of fielding candidates in the Bandar Sibu, Lanang and Sarikei seats, which are located in and around the party’s stronghold of Sibu.

There are 31 federal seats in Sarawak, and in GE13, SUPP was allocated seven. It lost six – five to DAP and one to PKR.

All the seats lost are urban Chinese-majority seats.

SUPP won only the rural Serian seat, a predominantly Dayak constituency.

The party’s deputy president, Richard Riot Jaem, who is also human resources minister, has held the seat for six terms. – March 22, 2018.