The Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) suffered its worst ever defeat in the May 20 Sarawak elections. It lost eight out of the 19 seats contested.

Party president and Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister George Chan has acknowledged the message from the voters. He said it was loud and clear.

He admitted that the Barisan Nasional(BN) component party had lost touch with some of the issues affecting the people and would take the necessary action to make a stronger comeback.

"We will make concerted efforts to emerge stronger," he was quoted as saying by Bernama.

SUPP lost in Padungan, Pending, Batu Lintang, Kota Sentosa, Engkilili, Meradong and Bukit Assek and failed to unseat the DAP in Kidurong.

Chan said the SUPP would also review and strengthen its organisation, including the grooming of young leaders.

May 20, 2006 would be remembered by the party and its members as one of the darkest days of its 46-year history, he said.

However, he thanked party members and loyal supporters, saying that they must remain calm and stay united.

Lesson for BN

Immediately after the election results were announced, Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud had asked SUPP to carry out a post-mortem on its defeat in the eight constituencies.

Taib, who is the state BN chairperson, said the post-mortem was important to find out the causes for the party's poor showing.

It is understood the SUPP will conduct a series of post-mortems before submitting a report to the top BN leadership.

In a related development, Deputy Information Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the defeat in nine seats is a lesson for BN not to take voters.

He said voters were now better informed with the existence of sophisticated communication facilities.

The popularity of a candidate in the print or electronic media was no longer a guarantee of victory, he said.