Sunday, February 17, 2008

SNAP to skip this election?

Party undergoing transformation and should focus on strengthening mission, says veep

Saturday, February 16th, 2008
The Borneo Post Online

KUCHING: Sarawak National Party (SNAP) will be giving the coming parliamentary election the skip if its vice president Dr John Brian Anthony has his way.

DR BRIAN: Making SNAP a party relevant to this millennium.

Speaking to The Borneo Post on his arrival from Kuala Lumpur for a party meeting yesterday, Dr Brian said SNAP has much to do to strengthen itself before it is truly election ready.

“If SNAP must contest, it should first be seen as a strong and formidable party, which it is not for now,” he said.

Dr Brian, a KL-based professional consultant and trainer in his mid 50s, is among several highly educated young blood who have been working on “making SNAP a party relevant to this millennium”.

Asked to elaborate, Dr Brian said SNAP today was still struggling with an image problem of being a party once on the verge of oblivion, following several crises which saw top leaders quitting politics altogether or leaving for other parties.

“For a while SNAP lost direction as a result of all those crises. But not anymore, the young but politically-savvy inductees are charting the party’s future direction.

“We believe if we do the right things, SNAP will be a formidable party once again in the not too distant future,” he said, adding that one of the most crucial decisions SNAP should bravely make now would be to skip the coming parliamentary election.

“SNAP’s focus now must be to win the hearts and mind of more young intellectuals and groom them for the leadership succession. Once this is done, SNAP will have been transformed and only then will it be ready to be judged by the people through the polls,” he said.

According to Dr Brian, the party’s young Turks do not believe in opposing for the sake of opposing and that the transformation they are seeking will ensure “a progressive SNAP of progressive Dayaks”.

“No more SNAP a party of the disgruntled. No more SNAP the party of the has-beens. The SNAP we envision is pro-active, and where we must support the government we will. If the older SNAP members had found it hard to change their old ways, the young Turks of the party, being progressive and pro-active, will be able to do with ease. That’s the transformation we are seeking,” Dr Brian said.

Asked what his position would be if SNAP should decide to join the fray in the coming election, Dr Brian said: “I will make my stand clear, and that is, SNAP will not go anywhere by winning just one or two seats. But it will be a significant step forward if it skips the election to concentrate on a strengthening mission.”

3 comments:

Tuan Lokong said...

Cheers, I would say, hoping this time it all will not be in vain.. Hidup SNAP

Bob K said...

Had the opportunity to meet up with some SNAP people when I was in Sarawak last November. I look forward to seeing SNAP's rebirth!

Sarawak National Party (SNAP) said...

Thanks Tuan Lokong and Bob K for your encouragement. Please pull all our resources together, god willing we will make SNAP once again a party to be reckoned with in the Malaysian political arena, especially in the state of Sarawak.

Come and join us in SNAP.