Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak today assured the Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) that he will always stand by it, saying he believed in the politics of principle.

He said that as the BN chairperson, he always believed in seeing the SUPP regain its former glory and contribute to the greater strength of the coalition.

Opening the SUPP's 23rd triennial delegates conference in Kuching, he said the party had survived three years of in-fighting and factionalism that had brought it to the brink of being deregistered. 

"In the darkest moment of the SUPP, I never wanted the SUPP to be deregistered," he said, adding that it should continue to be a political party.

"Nobody is bigger or larger than the interests of the party. We as individuals, we as leaders, we are as good as the party that we represent," he said.

Najib hailed the move by the SUPP to elect a new leadership to helm the state's oldest party during the conference and said he hoped that it would signal the end of factionalism that had been plaguing it.

He said members of the party should now unite behind their leaders to regain the support and confidence of the people in Sarawak.

"Our number one task is to ensure that our party is strong. As chairperson of the Barisan Nasional, I must ensure that every component party is strong," he said.

Talk is cheap

He also wanted the new SUPP leadership, which would be elected tomorrow at the conference, to paint a clear direction for the party and to have a real concrete plan to serve the people in the state.

"We cannot live on rhetoric. We must have specific plans. The plan must work. The plan must be given confidence so that the people in Sarawak will support the SUPP," he said.

Meanwhile, SUPP outgoing president Peter Chin expressed happiness with the commitment shown by Najib as well as Sarawak Chief Minister and state BN chairperson Adenan Satem, who had spoken earlier, to support the party all the way.

   

Met by reporters after the opening of the conference, he said Najib had been supporting the SUPP during the turmoil and openly expressed his support today.

"I think our members should take heed to see that here is our leader who is willing to commit himself openly to support us. If we don't do the hard work ourselves, we can only blame ourselves; don't blame anybody else for losing seats (in future elections)," he added.

The trouble in the SUPP, which was formed in 1959, began in 2011 after several leaders in the party led by its former deputy secretary-general Wong Soon Koh, disputed the party's election process and eventually left the party.

Soon Koh, together with several other elected representatives who ditched SUPP, joined the new United People's Party (UPP) earlier this year and had been lobbying to join the BN fold.

- Bernama