Presence and purpose in Sarawak questioned

Borneo Post
Posted on July 23, 2011, Saturday

KUCHING: The Secretary General of Sarawak Barisan Nasional Datuk Stephen Rundi Itom yesterday warned People’s Progressive Party (PPP) that the state BN would not compromise the presence of the party in the state if it jeopardizes the strength and structure of the Sarawak BN.

Rundi, who is also the Secretary General of PBB,the backbone of the Sarawak BN Government, said the presence of the party here will not help the BN as a whole because the party is not even doing well in Semenanjung.

“I dont want to pre-empt their motives but if it jeopardizes the Sarawak BN components’ strength and structure, we will not compromise.

“They are not doing well in Semenanjung … I don’t see what good they can do here either,” he said when contacted yesterday.

The secretary general, who is to-date the highest ranking Sarawak BN leader to comment on the approval given by the Registrar of Society (ROS) to PPP to open up branches in the state, said it would be better form BN as a whole if the party focuses on efforts to strengthen its base in the states in the peninsula before “thinking of spreading its wings to Sarawak.”

‘PPP not an alternative to SUPP’

Borneo Post

Posted on July 23, 2011, Saturday

KUCHING: Sarawak United People’s Party’s poor performance in the last state election should not be used as the basis for approving the application by Peninsula-based People’s Progressive Party (PPP) to set up a branch in Sarawak.

A PBB youth state exco Ambrose Jemut Ukam said Putra Jaya is making a big mistake in assuming that PPP could be an alternative to SUPP in the state.

“SUPP is a Chinese-dominant party while PPP is not. Therefore, don’t use the party’s loss of many seats in the last election as a reason to come in,” he said when contacted yesterday.

He pointed out that although SUPP only won six out of 19 seats contested in the last election, Sarawak Barisan Nasional (BN) still managed to get more than two-thirds majority in the election.

“If the Sarawak BN had lost in the last election, then we have no qualms accepting any Semenanjung-based component party of BN here but that is not the case.

PBB Youth vice-chief takes Anwar to task

Borneo Post

Posted on July 19, 2011, Tuesday

KUCHING: PBB Youth vice chief Pandi Suhaili urged Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to clean up his political act first before accusing the Barisan Nasional (BN) government of overacting over the Bersih 2.0’s illegal public rally.

He argued that it would be difficult to take whatever Anwar advocated seriously when his political career was full of broken promises, twisted words and shameless lies.

“A politician like him will only drive the country into the drain because he never seemed to care about what would happen to this country.

“When he was in Umno, he hit PAS like nobody’s business … but when he is no longer in Umno, he did a three-hundred-sixty degree turn and praised PAS.

“He wants everybody to believe that PKR is a party that fights for justice but he shut his eyes to the injustice that happened in the party that resulted in many hardcore supporters leaving the party,” he said.