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| BINTULU: Barisan Nasional's candidate for Bintulu Dato' Seri Tiong
King Sing is demanding for an apology from an English national broadsheet
for publishing an erroneous election nomination list that indicated Sarawak
National Party (SNAP) as still with the BN.
In a letter he submitted to the editor of the publication on Sunday, Tiong had also stated that the newspaper's Sunday issue had represented that SNAP is still a BN member and there were two BN candidates for all the four constituencies where Sarawak Progressive Democratic (SPDP) are contesting. "Your publication of 'BN-SNAP' has caused a lot of problems to BN. SNAP has already misinterpreted and misled the voters and the general public on the ground that SNAP is a bridge to the BN Government. So far, SNAP as an opposition party had used all sources and means in telling voters in Sarawak especially rural voters and in longhouses that SNAP is still a member of the BN," he added. Being a leading publisher in the country, he said that they should have known that SNAP is no longer a component member of BN and that had been reiterated by the Prime Minister and Barisan Nasional national chairman Dato' Seri Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi on Feb 20 this year. He also claimed in the letter that SNAP had photostated the aforementioned issue for distribution in the rural areas and longhouses in Sarawak particularly in Bintulu and Baram constituencies to support their wilful and deceptive claims. In demanding for an unqualified ratification and apology from the publisher in its immediate publication, Tiong also urged the editor to make similar apology announced through other media services. Should the publisher failed to do so, he said they should be "solely responsible for any eventuality that SNAP many benefit" from the misleading publication. Meanwhile, Jepak assemblyman Datuk Talib Zulpilip also supported Tiong's call for the publisher to clarify on the wrong publication to avoid further confusion among the people here. "We all knew that SNAP is already not in the BN, but yet they continue to claim to be in BN and confusing the people," said Talib, who also insisted that newspapers, being having a strong influence, should not allow such a mistake to occur in the first place. "The rule is very simple. If you are out, you're out," he said adding that SPDP had been formed to replace SNAP in the Barisan Nasional. |