Ardous task to revive SUPP

For heart surgeon Dr Sim, arduous task to resuscitate ailing SUPP 

By Sulok Tawie

The Mail Mail Online

KUCHING, March 22 — As a cardiac surgeon of some repute, Dr Sim Kui Hian is used to dealing with terminal patients, but his latest and possibly most challenging is one near and dear to his own heart: the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) he leads.

Wracked by infighting and flagging support, it won just six of the 19 Sarawak assembly seats it contested in the 2011 state election and witnessed dissenters breaking away to form a rival party that aims to usurp SUPP in the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

Just 50, Dr Sim joined in 2011, just in time to witness the start of the party’s decline, before a meteoric rise through the ranks led to him replacing Tan Sri Peter Chin Fah Kui at the head of SUPP last year.

With the next state election little more than a year away at most, Dr Sim’s task of nursing the party back to health has now taken on added urgency and complexity.

"The time frame is not just in our preparation for the next state polls, but also for the parliamentary election in 2018,” he told Malay Mail Online in a recent interview.

“If we do not start now, not only in 2016 we are not ready, but we are also not ready in 2018."

But Dr Sim is under no illusions over how arduous it will be to restore SUPP to its former glory or even to retain the seats it was able to keep during the 2011 Sarawak election.

He will also be acutely aware of the threats to the party not just from within, but also from rivals; the oldest son of former Sarawak deputy chief minister, the late Tan Sri Sim Kheng Hui, Dr Sim lost in Pending to the DAP's Violet Yong Wui Wui in the 2011 state polls.

"For a party which has suffered defeats, breaks-up, it takes time to transform and we can't transform it over night,” he said.

"The reality is I want to run as fast as I can. I want to introduce many things to rejuvenate the party to greater heights or at least to what we were before," the 50-year old added.

Still, Dr Sim takes heart in the 56-year-old party’s success in attracting professionals among its new members, but insists on the need to to instill in them an understanding of SUPP’s roots.

"We also need to re-train our old members. They need to refresh themselves," he added.

Among others, the efforts include inculcating a habit of regularly consulting the party grassroots for a focus on issues pertinent to the state and SUPP; he also pressed on the need to infuse leaders with the gumption to speak out on the same matters without fear.

"At the same time, we share our vision and mission with them. These are the things we must do in our efforts to rejuvenate and revive our party. It is a long-term process, but we have to start right now," he stressed.

Formed in 1959, SUPP had disastrous outings both in the 2011 Sarawak state poll and Election 2013. It lost over two in every three state seats it contested and won just one parliamentary spot.

SUPP finally split two last year, with the breakaway group led by Local Government and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Wong Soon Koh going on to form the rival but BN-friendly United People's Party (UPP).