Only candidates 'decided' by grassroots for polls: MUPP
Published on: Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Kota Kinabalu: Malaysia United People's Party (MUPP) will only put up election candidates who are "decided" by the grassroots in their respective areas to best represent them in Parliament or State Assembly.MUPP Acting President Philip Among said the party has its own way of knowing who the people preferred as the party continuously monitors public sentiment. Towards this end, he said MUPP will do away with the normal practice by political parties of only fielding those favoured by the president.
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"This is because MUPP respects the people's preference and choice."For this, we have a team to gauge public preference of individuals, those already going around serving the people and known to the voters."MUPP has done a two-month random survey and found out that majority of the electorates in Sabah now don't seem to be very receptive of the usual top-to-bottom style of decision-making on candidates, which is tantamount more to a decree than participatory decision."The locals, especially the opinion leaders, in the respective seats know how to build a consensus around who and who should be their best potential candidates to represent them.
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"We also found out in our survey that a growing number of voters in Sabah are frustrated with too many political parties and too many presidents around. Related to this, there is a big number of voters who said that for the coming general election, they would rather look at candidates' credentials rather than party's symbol."This particular view is especially very prevalent in the opposition-leaning electorates, but we expect it will also eventually affect the mindset of supporters of the ruling BN.
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"MUPP was recently injected with a much-needed morale boost when a son of Bapa Kemerdekaan Sabah, Tun Datu Mustapha Datu Harun, Datu Badaruddin, threw his support to MUPP at a press conference here."Datu Badaruddin was right when he said in his speech recently that MUPP was the only Sabah-based party that was genuinely independent and free of outside influence or attachments."I can confirm this now as we have received reliable reports on other local parties, who had been claiming to fight for Sabah's autonomy, but in actuality these parties' leaders are in constant counsel with top leaders of Malaya-based parties."What these leaders are doing behind the back of their own supporters is a disgrace to themselves, and in due time we shall expose them, one by one."He said these local opposition parties even discuss with their Malaya-based parties if their candidates are acceptable to them or not. "It appears under these alliance, the presidents among themselves will decide their candidates. They are doing this under a pretext of discussing cooperation, when what they are doing clandestinely is deciding their respective personal preferences.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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