George Chan rejects demand for SUPP CC meet

The ultimatum issued by 58 central committee (CC) members of the Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) to their president Dr George Chan Hong Nam to hold an emergency CC meeting has been rejected.

Earlier, the 58 CC members, through legal firm Wong, Orlando Chua and Kuok Advocates, gave Chan an ultimatum to convene an emergency CC meeting within 14 days, failing which legal proceedings would be initiated against him.

The 14-day period ended today.

"The group's demand for the emergency CC meeting through the legal process is irrelevant and unnecessary," Chan (right) said when contacted.

He explained that the party's central working committee (CWC) had also decided that the emergency CC meeting was not necessary and the demand was a non-issue.

Moreover, he said, the party's only two Chinese elected representatives, Wong Soon Koh, who is Bawang Assan assemblyperson, and Lee Kim Shin, the Senadin assemblyperson, had already joined the state cabinet and the CWC had endorsed their appointments.

Wong was appointed as state Second Finance Minister and Minister of Environment and Public Health, while Lee was appointed as Assistant Minister of Infrastructure Development and Communication after the April 16 Sarawak election.

The 58 CC members had submitted a requisition to the party leadership to call for an emergency CC meeting, but the SUPP CWC at its meeting on May 27 rejected the requisition.Group to give Chan 14 more days

The rejection angered the CC members, prompting them, through the legal firm on May 30, to issue an ultimatum to the party president to convene the emergency meeting within 14 days, or face legal action.

Chan had until yesterday to call for an emergency CC meeting to discuss a new party leadership and also why Wong and Lee took up the state cabinet appointments when some party leaders had objected to it.

A representative of the 58 CC members, when contacted today for the group's response to Chan's rejection of any emergency CC meeting, said they would give him another 14 days to call for it.

However, they do not intend to proceed with legal action, preferring to consider lodging a complaint with the Registrar of Societies should Chan still refuse their demand within the next 14 days.

In his immediate reaction to the new deadline given by the group, Chan said he would not bow to any pressure for him to step down before SUPP's triennial delegates conference, scheduled before the year-end.

Chan has come under heavy pressure following SUPP's dismal outing in the April 16 Sarawak state election, in which the party lost 13 of the 19 seats it contested.

Of the six SUPP leaders who won, only two are Chinese and the rest, Dayaks.

- Bernama