Lawyer enters Piasau fray

MIRI: A lawyer has announced his intention to contest for the Piasau SUPP secretary post, saying the party has been too out of tune with the rakyat, thus needs a “drastic shake-up”.

Miri-born David Siaw Ting Cheng, 45, said such a drastic shake-uip could only happen if he won the contest as it means he would get into a position where he could initiate the change.

“I want to contest the Piasau SUPP secretary post because it is an important platform to initiate faster changes not only for SUPP in Piasau, but also at state level,” he said to reporters yesterday.

Siaw is a member of the Malaysian Bar Council Constitution Law Committee and a former vice-president of the Advocates Association of Sarawak, and former Miri chairman of the Advocates Association of Sarawak. He was also a Miri City councillor from 1999 to 2006, and the current Miri SUPP legal adviser.

Siaw, who has been a lawyer for 19 years, had functioned as barrister and solicitor and advocates in the High Court of Malaya, High Court of Borneo and Supreme Court of Victoria in Australia.

Currently practising as a lawyer specialising in criminal cases and civil cases, he said that as the legal adviser of Miri SUPP, he had seen too many problems in the party that needed to be urgently addressed.

On his contest strategy, Siaw said: “I am in discussion with like-minded upcoming young leaders in SUPP statewide who are also of the opinion that SUPP is in need of a drastic internal revolution.

“The rakyat’s perception of SUPP is at an all-time low. SUPP is in danger of becoming totally irrelevant in the eyes of the people.

“There is a need for a complete overhaul. I am in touch with a group of other young potential leaders in SUPP in Miri and other parts of Sarawak to come up with drastic ideas on what we need to do to revive the party.

“The first step we need to make is to win key positions at branch level and then set our target at winning key positions at state level,” he said.

Siaw feels that SUPP’s massive losses in the state election in April proved that the party had been too docile, out of tune with the feelings of the voters, especially in urban Sarawak, too slow to react against unpopular government policies at state and national level and that SUPP had failed to live up to the expectations of the people.

He said in SUPP, there was too much internal disunity, too much unhealthy clan rivalries and too many leaders who are contented to remain as “yes-men”.

Asked if he was teaming up with any other potential leaders to contest the posts in SUPP as a unified team, he declined to comment, reiterating that there were like-minded young people in SUPP who held similar views that the party was in need of a total overhaul and that these people would be going for key posts at all levels.

SUPP is currently in the process of preparing for its branch elections for the youth, wanita and main wings, which are a prelude to the state-level election for all the state-level posts, including that of party president, deputy president, secretary-general and others. The state-level elections will be held during the coming triennial delegates conference scheduled for December, but which could be held earlier.

The Piasau SUPP posts are keenly contested. The current chairman Tan Sri Dr George Chan is also SUPP president. The current secretary is Koh Ek Chong, one of the potential candidates to take over from Dr Chan.

The person helming the Piasau SUPP chairman post is also by tradition, the Barisan Nasional candidate for that state seat.