Abandon Taib now or be buried, SUPP told

2nd February, 2011
Press release


KUCHING – The Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) has been urged to save itself from the clutches of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud and salvage whatever little dignity and pride it has left.


“SUPP must not be blind to the writing on that wall. For too long, the party has an image of being a mere stooge of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud. To continue supporting Taib now will seal the fate of SUPP. The party will be buried in the coming state election,” Movement For Change, Sarawak (MoCS) leader Francis Paul SIah said here today.



He reckoned that the only honourable thing for SUPP to do now is to withdraw its support for Taib and join the majority of Sarawak Chinese to kick out the most corrupt leader in the state in the coming state election.


“It is a fact that only some SUPP leaders and those with business ties with Taib and his family are the only Chinese left in Sarawak who are sill supporting Taib. The others have enough of Taib, a political leader who is now out of control and beyond salvation in amending his ways,” Siah said.


The MoCS leader was commenting on the chief minister’s Chinese New Year message in which Taib told the Chinese not to bark at the government from outside.


Taib said the community could come up with ideas of how to make the economy inclusive of Chinese interests by participation instead of merely criticizing from outside.


“SUPP has been barking from inside for the past 40 years. But the party has been ineffective in looking after the interests of the Chinese. Only a few top SUPP leaders have benefitted and had become immensely wealthy after barking inside for 40 years.


“So to the Chinese community, barking inside or outside does not make any difference. In fact, the Chinese should now start barking against Taib from four corners - inside, outside, upside and down-side. This is MoCS Chinese New Year message to Sarawak Chinese,” Siah quipped. 


He said that the founders of SUPP like the late Ong Kee Hui and Stephen Yong must be rolling in their graves now that the party is in shambles today. 


Siah said Ong, Yong and the early SUPP founders were men of vision and integrity.


“They even opposed Sarawak joining the Federated Malay States in forming Malaysia in 1963. Today, the people of Sarawak could sense that they were not far off track in their opposition of Malaysia then,” he said.  


To be fair to SUPP, Siah recalled that previous leaders and members of the party had sacrificed a lot for Sarawak, with many even killed, tortured or incarcerated for taking part in the Communist insurgency.  


“In those days, their people were prepared to risk their lives, rightly or wrongly, in the service of the state. Today, SUPP is all about being self-serving,” he lamented.


Siah said the majority of SUPP members and supporters have not benefitted at all from their four decades of participation in the government.


Citing an example, he said he met a SUPP Kuching branch veteran who was still a hawker in a Kuching food court recently.


“The poor guy is over 70 years old and he still has to eke out a living as a hawker today. The sad part is that he was already feeble and sickly. He told me he joined SUPP when he was in his early 20’s and was still a loyal party member today”, said Siah.


“This is a classic example of Taib’s Politics of Development and SUPP’s blind and cowardly backing for a corrupt chief minister and an uncaring government.


“Taib Mahmud’s administration is a government without a heart. A government with a heart will look after the people first, not looking after the personal interests of its leaders,” he said.


“On this Lunar New Year, MoCS’s foremost wish is to be able to come up with the formula of a ‘pesticide’ which will see to the eradication of the ‘termite colony’ in Sarawak,” added Siah. 


Released by


MoCS team