Yong’s shock defeat traced to SUPP infighting, Chong’s wave

KUCHING: It stunned Richard Wee, chairman of Board of Management for Kuching Chung Hua Middle Schools No.1, 3 and 4 when official result on Sunday showed that BN- SUPP Stampin candidate Datuk Yong Khoon Seng was defeated by a whopping majority of 18,670 votes.

“I was shocked although I have known it would be an uphill battle. I did not expect him to lose ( by) that much. I actually expected a margin of between 2,000 and 3,000 votes,” he said by phone here yesterday.

Wee felt that DAP’s re- elected Bandar Kuching MP Chong Chieng Jen had successfully brought about a type of phenomenon not just in his own constituency but which also affected voters in Stampin.

“I think you can see that Bandar Kuching is so close to Stampin. So when Chong took his election campaign to that kind of level, it caused strong sentiments in Stampin.

“The same occurred in Sibu when Lanang (was) lost, Sibu was dragged down too. Yet of course, there are issues that remained unsolved and have gone on for many years.”

He regretted that SUPP had not consolidated its efforts in trying “to put their house in order” prior to the election.

Only when a political party stayed united, could it tackle external pressures and opponents, he believed.

“All the in-house fighting of SUPP does not help. And rather than blaming us, the Chinese associations for not supporting, SUPP should seriously look at the composition of these associations.

“When you talk about Chinese voters, many of them are not involved in Chinese associations, and they don’t care much either.

“For the SUPP to engage Chinese associations to support them will be engaging the minority,” he said, adding that the oldest political party in the state had to reach further out for better grassroots support.