It's official! Senator Wee Kok Tiong, son the late well-known Sarawak businessman Wee Boon Ping, has been nominated by the Sarawak United People's Party (Supp) as the Barisan Nasional candidate for the Bandar Kuching parliamentary seat.

The announcement made by party president Dr George Chan yesterday ended many months of speculation as to who would replace former Kuching City mayor and state assembly speaker Song Swee Guan who resigned his parliamentary seat last year because of financial problems.

Wee (left) is expected to resign as senator, a post to which he was appointed on the recommendation of Supp two years ago, when he is officially endorsed as candidate after elections are called.

The Bandar Kuching seat is right in the heart of the state capital. It has a history of being in the hands of the Opposition since direct elections were introduced in Sarawak in 1970.

In the 1999 elections, BN's Song polled 18,239 votes against his nearest rival the Independent Dominique Ng Kim Ho's 9,850 votes in a three-cornered fight. The third candidate Sarawak DAP Sarawak secretary Chong Chieng Jin polled 5913 votes.

Three-way fight

The coming contest is expected to be a three-cornered fight with DAP already declaring that it is going ahead to field Chong, the lawyer son of former Sarawak DAP chairperson Chong Siew Chiang.

Wee, who is into property, timber and newspaper business, is the only new face among the seven candidates that the party's central working committee has nominated for the party's quota out of the 28 parliamentary seats in Sarawak.

The others re-nominated are Yong Khoon Seng (Stampin), Richard Riot (Serian), Law Hieng Ding (Sarikei), Lau Hoi Chew (Sibu), Tiong Thai King (Lanang) and Peter Chin (Miri).

Supp is the first BN component party to have publicly announced its recommended list of candidates, and this, according to political observers, is to end speculation and indicate that the party unlike some other component parties has reached a unanimous decision on the choice of candidates in the coming elections.