Being the first local political party, the origins Sarawak United Peoples' Party (SUPP) are tied to Sarawak's history of the 20th century political awakening. After
World War II, the last
Rajah of Sarawak,
Charles Vyner Brooke ceded Sarawak to
Britain in 1946, turning it into an official
British Crown Colony to the dismay of many locals. This eventually gave rise to local
anti-cession and
anti-imperialist movements that further sparked local political consciousness. The triggering event was the proclamation of Sarawak's Constitution of 1959 which fell short of expectations for many who hoped to see significant progress towards self-governance. The need for an organised political front to champion Sarawakian interests finally led to the formation of SUPP on 4 June 1959, with
Ong Kee Hui as its founding president. With a "Sarawak for Sarawakians" ideology – SUPP's movement gained widespread support, including winning big in the local elections of November 1959, alarming the then ruling British colonial government. When the proposal for Federation of Malaysia was first mooted in 1961, SUPP came out strongly to oppose the idea. Ong argued for Sarawak's independence before setting up a greater federation. In December 1962, the British colonial government launched a crackdown on all dissenting groups in Sarawak. Many party members were detained, some even deported from Sarawak for alleged communist activities as, at the time, some members had links with Communist-affiliated organisations. Nonetheless, SUPP still did well at the Sarawak elections of June 1963 but it left one-seat-short of a majority to form government, thus it remained as the opposition party. On 22 July 1963, Sarawak gained independent self-governance from Britain. On 16 September, Sarawak together with the Federation of Malaya, Singapore and North Borneo (Sabah) jointly founded the Federation of Malaysia. In June 1965, the government launched “Operation Hammer” to counter prevailing communist threats. Party leaders vehemently protested when about 10,000 Sarawakians men, women and children were forced to resettle under curfew – surrounded by barb-wire fencing – including more than a hundred SUPP members. Party leaders initiated daily visits to the resettlement centres to monitor the welfare of the detainees, but later, even this was barred by the government. In May 1969, due to
13 May riots in Peninsular Malaysia, an Emergency Proclamation was declared across the country, suspending an ongoing elections in Sarawak. When the Sarawak elections resumed in 1970, SUPP emerged as the single party with largest number of votes, but no party has control of majority seats to form a government. Considering that this crisis for a functioning government occurred at a time when, on one hand, a state of turmoil post-13 May was still present, while on the other hand, people were rounded-up and detained without trial – SUPP accepted the invitation to form a coalition government to stabilise the situation. In exchange, the government agreed to SUPP demand that party secretary-general
Stephen Yong be appointed to the State Operations Committee (the security directorate) so that the party can influence counter-insurgency operations to look after the welfare of SUPP detainees including Chinese settlers, in the resettlement centres. In the ensuing years, SUPP generally had wide support at the polls even during the 2008
Malaysian general election where most of its allies suffered. However, it is no stranger to major setbacks at the polls: In the
1996 Sarawak election, its then president, the late Wong Soon Kai was defeated and thereafter decided to retire from politics. A similar situation happened in
2011 Sarawak election when the then party president,
George Chan Hong Nam was unseated. It also lost at the
Sibu by-election of 2010. In the
2013 Malaysian general election, the party won only 1 out of 7 seats contested. Not long after, Wong Soon Koh, who was then the deputy secretary-general, left with his faction and eventually set up a separate splinter-party with a similar-sounding name, called
United People's Party (UPP). A positive turnaround was marked in the
2016 Sarawak election when SUPP, with current party president
Sim Kui Hian at the helm, went on to win 7 seats out of 15 contested. After establishing new leadership line-up and reforms including amending the party constitution to limit the tenure of the president himself, the party placed renewed focus on the pursuit of more Sarawakian autonomous power and rights within Malaysia based on the unique contexts of the federation's formation, as originally outlined in the
Malaysia Agreement 1963, Inter-Governmental Committee Report, and the Report of the
Cobbold Commission. == Organisational structure ==