KUCHING: GPS will be made a household name in Pantai Damai through its next phase of roadshow which began with its participation in the Zone 1 seminar and town hall with the Chief Minister.
After the six-constituency combined seminar in January, GPS-PBB Pantai Damai will now commence a series of seminars and workshops in the Pantai Damai constituency starting with the leadership at the divisional level all the way down to the neighbourhoods and grassroots levels in a move to introduce GPS and outline its mission and struggle to all its 16,699 registered members.
This was revealed at a press conference held by GPS-PBB Pantai Damai chairman and assemblyman Datuk Dr Abdul Rahman Junaidi.
Dr Rahman said, “We will be recruiting as we go from level to level and we will also be encouraging voter registrations concurrently so that all our members are also voters in the constituency.
“Pantai Damai has the highest membership in PBB and so concurrent with this tour inward into our own base we will also be recruiting more members with a target membership of 20,000.”
The current total voter count for the constituency as per the last publication by the election commission shows that Pantai Damai has 18,644 voters and Dr Rahman and his team anticipate the number will increase come the next state election slated for 2021.
The aim of the committee was to have as high as 85 per cent of the voting public as their party members, equipped with a clear understanding of the party struggles, principle and a sense of loyalty to Sarawak by keeping Sarawak politics in the hands of Sarawak parties and people via GPS.
Dr Rahman said, “In the last state election we successfully mobilised 75 per cent of our members to the polls and we won with 85 per cent of the vote, so what we want is to have an increase in majority and for that we are recruiting those who are 20 years old so that when they turn 21 we will help them register to vote and we will already have them as our members and loyal voters.”
To a question on the existence of dual or multiple membership by some members of the party Dr Rahman was quick to point out “there is no place where opportunists will not be”.
He went on to say that his division was not immune to opportunists and had to recommend the suspension of several members of the division with one of them a branch chairman for violating party rules and having dual membership and actively sponsoring and participating in a West Malaysia-based political party.
“What we usually do is when we know that our member is actually also a card carrying member of another political party then we politely ask him to choose one or the other. Sometimes they will quit, which is ok with us.
On GPS losing some members to GPS-friendly Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) he opined that the positive that he could see was that the seasoned politicians chose a local political party and not a West Malaysia-based one as earlier rumoured.
“This is important because we need to keep Sarawak politics in Sarawak and they chose a local party so whatever happens at the end of the day it is all within Sarawak.
“To me it shows that they may have been uncomfortable in their former home so they chose to leave but they still want to serve so they chose a local party to do it and I take that as a positive.”
