GE15: Aspirasi eyes four seats, but yet to reveal candidates

Sarawak People’s Aspiration Party (Aspirasi) president Lina Soo speaks to Malay Mail during an interview in Kuching December 13, 2021. – MalayMail photo

KUCHING (Aug 23): Sarawak People’s Aspiration Party (Aspirasi) is eyeing one urban and three sub-urban seats, all in the southern region, for the 15th general election (GE15), says its president Lina Soo.

According to her, the party has the potential candidates to be fielded in Bandar Kuching, Puncak Borneo, Mas Gading and Serian, but declined to reveal any names.

“These aspiring candidates are still doing some grassroots works. We will announce the candidates in due course,” she told a press conference held at a hotel here yesterday.

Adding on, Soo said Aspirasi was interested to go for all three Bidayuh-majority seats (Mas Gading, Puncak Borneo and Serian) because the party’s roots ‘had always been in southern Sarawak’.

“The party’s roots were established in the Bidayuh geographical area by Dr Patau Rubis, the founder of STAR (State Reform Party, the name of the party before it changed to Aspirasi in 2020).

“Dr Patau was sacked (from Sarawak Cabinet) because at that time, almost 30 years ago, he was already talking about corruption. Following the sacking, he founded his own party, STAR.

“So, the predominantly-Bidayuh constituencies are where we will stand in the GE15,” she said.

However, Soo also said Aspirasi would still be open to negotiations.

“The three Bidayuh-majority seats are Aspirasi’s interest because the party’s roots are in the Bidayuh areas, especially Bau.

“We are willing to sit down with any other political parties, except Gabungan Party Sarawak (GPS), which has said that it is going for all the 31 parliamentary seats.

“With the other parties, we are very willing to sit down and work out a compromise because at the end of the day, the big picture is Sarawak, and what is best for Sarawak,” she said, pointing out that no single party could go for all the seats and win them all.

“This is a political reality,” she said.

Elaborating, Soo said Aspirasi was willing to sit down with the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and talk about Mas Gading and Bandar Kuching, as well as with Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) regarding Puncak Borneo.

“We, in Aspirasi, will try to compromise as far as we can, but we will still go for GE15 even if it’s just for a small number of seats.

“We are not going to sit back and surrender every seat; we are very open because we feel that the opposition parties have to come together if we wanted to deny GPS of a clean sweep.

“We cannot allow a multi-cornered fight to happen in every seat,” she said, believing that the next parliamentary polls would be ‘very crowded’ in terms of the number of candidates from all contesting parties.

“So we will continue our discussion and negotiation with other parties, not just with Sarawak’s opposition parties, but also with those from the main opposition coalition, Pakatan Harapan.

“This said, we hope that we could still sit down with them (DAP and PKR). The best is a one-to-one fight. This is the logical way,” she added.

from Borneo Post Online https://ift.tt/GkNytQn
via IFTTT