A suggestion by Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) president Dr George Chan that former Sarawak General Hospital heart centre head Professor Dr Sim Kui Hian takes over as party president has been met with a dry response from other party leaders.

Rather than coming outright in support of Chan’s suggestion, they said they preferred that party members decide who the next president would be.

NONE Youth chief Sih Hua Tong explained today it would be best to let the members decide who they want as their next president to replace Chan, who wants to retire when his term ends at the party’s triennial delegates conference scheduled for the end of the year.

Sih, who lost to See Chee How of PKR in Batu Lintang in the recent state election, said the conference would be the proper venue to decide on the new president.

“Generally, I believe that Dr Sim is a very capable person and more than qualified to take over, but again, let the proper party process decide, if we want to talk about democracy.

“It is up to the members to make their choice,” Sih said.

Asked whether Sim could be accepted as party president since he was new in the party, Sih said such a question would best be answered by the delegates.

NONE “Let us not speculate or assume what will happen. We cannot run away from the basic rights of the party members,” he said.

SUPP vice-president Lily Yong said Chan ( right ) was entitled to his personal views about his successor.

“However, who is going to lead the party is not decided by one person, but by the whole party.

“I think we should stop speculating. The most important thing is to have another central working committee (CWC) meeting to decide on our next course of action,” Yong said.

‘All veteran leaders should quit’

Chan, who was defeated in his Piasau seat in Miri, which he had held for seven terms, by DAP greenhorn Ling Sie Kiong, had suggested that Sim succeed him as the SUPP president.

He had wanted to quit as SUPP president last week and take full responsibility for the party’s disastrous outing in the April 16 election where it lost 13 of the 19 seats it contested.

Chan had said that the party needed a new and young leader, since the existing crop of veterans would not be able to bring about the desired changes that the state’s oldest party badly needed.

He did not think that party deputy secretary-general and minister of public health and environment Wong Soon Koh or treasurer-general David Teng should be the president.

According to Chan, many party members would object to Wong or Teng as party president. “I really believe that all the veteran leaders, like Wong and Teng, should step down.”

He said a junior leader should take over as president, especially one who could work with the other new leaders from Kuching, Sibu and Miri.

najib rally kuching 100411 bn candidate sim Sim ( right in photo ), when contacted by a Chinese-language newspaper, declined to comment on Chan’s suggestion.

“The more we talk about it now, the more confusing it will become.”

As for his future plans, Sim said he was still not sure because he has not had the time to think about it.

Sim battled in Pending but failed to wrest the seat back from the DAP. The incumbent, Violet Yong, defeated him by a majority of 7,595 votes.