The same goon that cry for Unity always the same that caused Split, Disunity and Sabotage lah
Big joke PRS…exactly like PBDS – Parti Bunoh Dayak Sarawak lah…
__________________
Party man: PBDS is multi-racial in essence but Dayak in substance
by Tony Thien, Malaysia Kini, 7 June 2003
Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) vice-president Sng Chee Hua’s statement today insinuating that party president Leo Moggie is a ‘racist’ by advocating that the two top party posts should only be held by Dayaks has provoked immediate reaction within party circles.
Why Sng had decided to come out with a public statement on the issue so long after Moggie’s comments made after the PBDS supreme council meeting last month has also led to much speculation.
In Sng’s first public reaction to Moggie’s comments on the issue, he also said that Moggie’s remarks could be interpreted to mean that only the “Dayaks can help the Dayaks and that a Chinese cannot help his fellow countrymen from another race.”
He suggested that if this was indeed Moggie’s actual comments then he (Moggie) “had run foul of the Barisan Nasional’s concept of promoting multi-racialism and the creation of Bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian race).”
Crack in Masing’s camp?
Further, he claimed, there was now even a proposal to turn the Barisan Nasional into a multi-racial party.
According to a Tajem-Salang group supporter, Sng’s latest comments appear “to suggest a crack within the Masing-Sng faction with talks on the ground that Masing men may have already told their supporters to forget Sng if they don’t want him as deputy president so long as they vote for Masing”.
Moggie, who is Minister of Energy, Communications and Multimedia, is a highly-respected Dayak leader in Sarawak, and his recent comments that the party’s two posts should be held only by Dayaks in keeping with the party’s image as a Dayak-based party appear to have rattled many of Masing-Sng supporters.
“It’s not just a saleable tag-line,” according to one PBDS leader who asked not to be identified. “PBDS is multi-racial in essence but Dayak in substance.”
Sng, however, acknowledged it was Moggie’s right to change his mind about not supporting Masing as his successor for the party’s top post.
But he added that he would stay by Masing as he considered him “a qualified administrator and able to do a good job.”
Staying neutral
Meanwhile, a Moggie aide told malaysiakini that when the party president made the announcement recently he had more or less dropped his original preference for Masing to succeed him, he (Moggie) was in fact trying to stay neutral in the race for the party’s top post.
According to several observers, although not ruling out a possible last-minute compromise, Moggie would now prefer to let the delegates decide who they want to lead the party after he steps down.
Observers are also not discounting a possible last-minute agreement on branches qualified to take part together with delegates with their voting rights and for the delegates to make a free choice of who they want to lead the party, without any interference from anyone.
But, according to the same observers, this may be contingent upon only the contest for the No 2 post being open only to Dayaks meaning Sng may have to withdraw if there is to be a last-minute compromise.
The party elections will be held on July 26-27.
PBDS supreme council will hold its meeting on June 28, probably the last before the triennial delegates conference.
Credentials committee
Meanwhile, PBDS secretary-general Stanley Ajang told malaysiakini that all letters of appointment to members of the recently-established credentials committee had been sent out.
“They’ve all accepted their appointments.”
He said the committee will scrutinise the eligibility of branches to attend and send delegates to vote. The committee is headed by Dr Jawie Masing, a veteran party leader and a former state assemblyperson.
Sng is backing party information chief Dr James Masing, who is also state minister of social development and urbanisation, as new party chief to succeed Moggie who has decided not to seek re-nomination.
Ranged against them are deputy president Daniel Tajem who after nearly 20 years as Moggie’s deputy in the party feels it is time for him to move up and take over the helm of the party.
Tajem’s running mate for the deputy presidency is Joseph Salang, the party’s treasurer-general and Julau member of parliament.
Tajem is away campaigning in Pantu and was not immediately available for comments.
_______________
Moggie: PBDS is still a Dayak-based party
by Tony Thien, Malaysia Kini, 16 March 2003
In what is seen in some quarters as trying to hint indirectly his thinking on the leadership struggle issue in the party, Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) president Leo Moggie has said that PBDS should remain Dayak-based.
“In Malaysia, it is acceptable for all the ethnic groups to have their own parties to foster unity in diversity via the Barisan Nasional,” he was quoted by the Sunday Tribune, a local English daily, as saying on Friday when declaring open three PBDS branches -Telang Usan, Tutoh and Apok in Ulu Baram.
Acceptable trend
He added: “In Peninsular Malaysia, we have Umno for the Malays, MIC for the Indians and MCA for the Chinese while in Sarawak it is accepted that SUPP represents the Chinese and PBDS the Dayaks.”
“Even though we are opening our doors to our non-Dayak friends, PBDS is still a Dayak-based party.”
The statement would seem to indicate that Moggie, who is also Minister of Energy, Communications and Multimedia, is at variance with the view of his information chief Dr James Masing, who has declared himself as candidate for the president’s post once Moggie steps down.
Masing, the state minister of social development and urbanisation and leader of his own faction within the party that had declared they are going for broke at the party’s next triennial delegates conference (TDC).
Masing, who announced party vice president Sng Chee Hua as his running mate for the deputy president’s post, has gone on record as saying that the top leadership of the party could still consist of non-Dayaks “as long as they are capable.”
Memory lane
At a PBDS dinner on Saturday in Marudi, where the party held its supreme council meeting earlier in the afternoon, Moggie, according to the Sarawak Tribune, “urged party members to go down memory lane on why PBDS was formed and why it joined the Barisan Nasional.”
PBDS was a breakaway group from the now-defunct Sarwak National Party (Snap) in the early 1980s after Moggie and his group refused to accept James Wong Kim Min as the new president of Snap in a bitter contest.
In an interview with The Sunday Tribune, Moggie said the Dayaks were still far behind other communities and that a lot still needed to be done by themselves.
Moggie together with Bernard Dompok, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and Sabah’s Upko leader, were the main force behind getting a Federal Government-endorsed seminar in Kuala Lumpur in April last year focusing on the present economic status of the Dayak and Kadazdusun communities.
As an off-shoot of that seminar, well attended by intellectuals, academicians and politicians from both communities, a Sarawak Dayak Chamber of Commerce has been formed with Leonard Linggi Jugah, one of Malaysia’s most successful Iban businessmen and enterpreneurs, as its first president.
The seminar, organised by the Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association, was declared open by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who promised more support on behalf of the Federal Government to improve the economic status of the bumiputra minority groups.
___________________
Tajem says PBDS must stay Dayak-based
by Tony Thien, Malaysia Kini, 2 March 2003
Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) deputy president Daniel Tajem has made it clear that the party must continue to be led and controlled by Dayaks.
In an interview published today in the Sunday Tribune, he said he would not compromise on the status of PBDS.
“PBDS was formed by a group of Dayaks to articulate the Dayak cause and was so named – Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak. It is a Dayak-based party and I hold the view that it should be such,” he said.
Tajem, a former Sarawak deputy chief minister and former Malaysian envoy to New Zealand, proclaimed: “On that, I don’t compromise. We can play a secondary or minor role but the party must be led and controlled by Dayaks.”
Would he not be concerned about being labelled a racist?, Tajem was asked.
His reply: “Well, if that’s the case, then I treat it as a compliment. At least, they know that Dayaks exist.”
Racial-based parties
“In any case, can you tell me the number of political parties in Malaysia named after the communities they represent? Umno, MCA and MIC. If these people are racists, then yes, I am a racist along with them. Some may say it is a politically-incorrect statement.”
“In anything you do, there are detractors and one shouldn’t be afraid of detractors as long as one’s goal is genuine and honest. You have to be true to yourself. What I don’t like is when you say one thing but do another.What can’t you just call a spade a spade?”
Tajem also said that he had never agreed to or endorsed party information chief Dr James Jemut Masing as his running mate for the party No 2 post at the forthcoming triennial delegates conference (TDC) tentatively scheduled in September this year.
He also made it clear that he would not go for the No 1 post as long as the party president Leo Moggie wants to continue to lead the Dayak based party.
Miri declaration
Tajem was responding to a series of questions concerning the Miri declaration (made by some 160 branches in April last year during which the delegates declared their support for him to succeed Moggie as president and Masing, the state minister of social development and urbanisation, as deputy president) and Masing’s call for discarding what he described as ethnic chauvinism and his personal relationship with Moggie.
Tajem also declined to comment when asked whether party vice president Sng Chee Hua should run for the deputy president in the forthcoming TDC as part of the Masing-Sng alliance that is being offered as an alternative, should the proposed Tajem-Masing alliance that the delegates in Miri called for fizzle out.
“I don’t want to comment on that,” he said.
Asked whether Moggie should go for another term as president, Tajem said he was the first to talk to him (Moggie) about changing his retirement plans.
“On January 5, 2001 when Moggie first expressed his intention to retire, I and another close friend persuaded him for three long hours to stay on. At that meeting, he also voiced his frustrations with certain people,” he added.
According to Tajem, they failed to dissuade him “but I did tell him not to break the news in public because there would be a lot of political and social ramifications if he were to do that.” He did not elaborate, however.
Tajem said nobody should doubt his personal relationship with Moggie. “We grew up together. He knows my weaknesses and strengths and I know his. We can curse one another but that will not make us lesser friends.”
Tajem said that should Moggie stick to his word and not contest, he would put his (Tajem’s ) name forward as candidate for the top post. “I would leave it to the delegates to decide who they want to be the No 2. I would not want to have cliques and camps.”
Moggie still needed
Meanwhile, in an interview with the same paper, deputy presidential aspirant Joseph Sallang, who is also party treasurer-general, said he would only see himself moving up the party hierarchy “if that is what the party leadership and delegates want and not otherwise.”
And if he is elected, Sallang said his most important priority would be to get the party members to be more involved and to understand the reasons for the party’s existence and why they chose to become members of the party.
“That part is not much understood generally by the rural people,” Sallang, who acknowledges Moggie as “the boss” and holds similar views as party secretary-general Stanley Ajang felt that it is still not the time for Moggie to relinquish his post as party president.
“I think it is right to try and dissuade him from retiring because he still has a lot of useful years in leading the party. He has contributed so much to the party and his services are still needed,” Salang added.
__________________
Sng: My loyalty to PBDS should never be questioned
by KS Paul, Malaysia Kini, 6 June 2003
Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) vice-president Sng Chee Hua said today that he is a party loyalist and that his loyalty to PBDS should never be questioned by anyone within or outside the party.
“I have been through thick and thin with PBDS since I won the Pelagus state seat in 1991 when the party was still wandering aimlessly in the opposition in Sarawak. Even through those difficult years, I had never wavered in my support for PBDS,” he stressed.
Sng said that even when he was dropped at the last minute as the Barisan Nasional candidate for the parliamentary seat of Julau (although he was the incumbent then) in the 1999 general election, he went all out to ensure victory for his successor.
Julau victory
“I utilised my machinery, resources and mobilised all my supporters in Julau to make sure that the candidate (PBDS treasurer-general Joseph Salang) secure a handsome victory,” he recalled.
“A lesser man would have abandoned the party upon being dropped. But I stayed on and toiled tirelessly for PBDS and the BN during the election campaign,” he added.
Sng was responding to recent criticisms against him in recent weeks questioning his loyalty to PBDS and his ability to serve the interests of members of the predominantly Dayak party as he was a Chinese.
Sng is now the running mate of party’s information chief Dr James Masing in their quest to wrest control of the PBDS top posts at the party’s triennial delegates’ conference next month.
They are currently embroiled in a factional feud with their rivals for the president’s and deputy president’s posts, Daniel Tajem and Joseph Salang.
Sole Chinese winner
In the 1991 state election, Sng was the lone Chinese candidate to win on the PBDS ticket. He was then an associate member of the party. Several other Chinese candidates who also contested under the PBDS banner were defeated. The party won seven state seats that year.
When PBDS amended its constitution to open its doors to non-Dayaks, Sng became a full-fledged card carrying member of the party. He made his parliamentary debut in the 1995 general election and won the Julau seat for the party.
Sng also secured the second highest majority votes among BN candidates in Sarawak in that elections – and this, for a Chinese contesting in a Dayak-majority constituency, was no easy feat.
In the 1996 state election, Sng retained his Pelagus seat unopposed. He did not contest in the 2001 state election to make way for his son, Larry Sng, in Pelagus.
‘Seditious’ remark
On party president Leo Moggie’s recent remark that he preferred Dayaks to be the president and deputy president of PBDS, Sng responded: “Moggie is entitled to his opinion”.
“In fact, I am quite surprised that Moggie (for his standing and stature) had made those remarks which can be described as ‘racial’ and which even bordered on ‘sedition’.”
Sng also asked whether by his remarks, Moggie meant that only the Dayaks can help the Dayaks and that a Chinese cannot help his fellow countrymen from another race.
“If this is the case, then Moggie had run foul of the BN’s concept of promoting multi-racialism and the creation of a Bangsa Malaysia.
“Even as we speak, there is a proposal to turn the BN into a single multi-racial party and that proposal is being seriously bandied about by top BN leaders in a move to promote and strengthen multi-racial politics,” he said.
Sng said that he advocated multi-racial politics as it was the best concept to ensure that the state and nation attain greater heights in all spheres of development.
“Racial politics is a thing of the past. It cannot work anymore. We have to bury it and look forward to multi-racial politics which is about caring, compassion and sharing among the people”.
Petty and vindictive
Sng also pointed out that PBDS leaders must practise what they preach.
“It is a fact that PBDS subscribes to the BN policy of power-sharing among people of all ethnic groups.
“Yes, PBDS leaders have also been preaching multi-racialism all along. It is wrong and even dangerous to be ‘racial’ just because of one party election. It is also petty and vindictive.”
Sng stressed that he would not be unduly distracted in his political belief of upholding multi-racialism to enable the working of a vibrant democracy in the state and nation.
“All of us have since learnt that a multi-racial concept of power-sharing requires immense patience and tolerance.
“And in the run-up to the party election, I will continue to be patient and tolerant,” he assured.
Right to contest
Asked why he wanted to go for the deputy president’s post, Sng said he felt he could continue to serve the best interests of the party better in a more senior position.
“There is also nothing in the party constitution to prevent any member from contesting party posts, so why should anyone try to stop me,” he asked.
“From Day One, Moggie never told me that I cannot contest for this post or that post. PBDS is a democratic party and a member’s right to go for any party position should never be curbed,” he added.
Another reason why he agreed to be Masing’s running mate was because Moggie had repeatedly told him (Sng) that Masing was his choice as successor.
“In fact, I agree with Moggie all these while that Masing should take over as party president once he (Moggie) decides to step down.
“Of course, Moggie can change his mind in mid-stream but I am staying by Masing. It is also because I feel Masing is an experienced and qualified administrator and a person whom I can trust to do a good job”.
Speak Iban like an Iban
Sng 59, hailed from the Iban heart-land of Kapit in central Sarawak. He is a long-time businessman and corporate player.
One distinct advantage he has as an elected representative in a Dayak-majority constituency is his ability to speak the Iban language. He is well-known as a Chinese who speaks Iban like an Iban.
On public perception that he was the sole financier of PBDS, Sng was modest in his reply, “let’s just say that I contribute to the party just like everybody else”.
However, Sng said that the PBDS education foundation was something close to his heart and he would continue to support it for the sake of the future generations of Dayaks.
He revealed that since the foundation was set up, he had contributed RM1.4 million towards it.
“Of the 150 students who had benefitted from the foundation so far, only three were Chinese”, he said.
“Just take education as an example. Don’t tell me that a Chinese cannot help the Dayaks here,” he added as a matter-of-fact.
__________________
Masing-Sng pact an ‘unholy alliance’, says rival leader
by Tony Thien, Malaysia Kini, 15 Mar 2003
In what is seen as the first shot taken by a rival faction against their opponents, the Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) state assemblyperson for Ngemah Gabriel Adit Demong has described the pact forged between party information chief Dr James Jemut Masing and vice president Sng Chee Hua as “an unholy alliance.”
He was quoted in today’s Borneo Post, an English daily, as questioning the need and the motive behind the announcement by the duo to contest for the two top party posts two days ahead of the party’s supreme council meeting in Marudi.
He added that he could not understand why they made the announcement when the party had not even announced the date for the forthcoming triennial delegates conference (TDC).
The Borneo Post report said that “Adit agreed that the fact the announcement was timed so that the printed press would carry it in their pages on the eve of the supreme council meeting on Saturday (today) was just plain suspicious.”
“They may be trying to pressure Leo Moggie (PBDS president) into retiring when all the grassroots actually want him to stay on,” Adit , a nephew of Moggie, was quoted as saying.
“What they are doing will have a bad impact on the party. You don’t pressure your president like that. I tell you, Masing and Sng are an unholy alliance”, he said.
At Thursday’s press conference, after saying, in response to questions, that this was an internal party matter and that the Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud would not interfere into PBDS’ internal affairs, Masing also said he hoped that there would be no “external inflence” trying to get Moggie not to step down.
To Masing, Adit said:” I hope they (Masing and his group) are not the ones who are being influenced by others.”
According to the Borneo Post, Adit reiterated that the party’s two top posts should be held by Dayak leaders, but this, he added, did not mean that PBDS is not a multi-racial party.
“I am no being chauvinistic, but I think everybody should know where their roles are in the party and they should not overstep their roles,” Adit was also quoted as saying, referring to similarities with the Sarawak United People’s Party (Supp).
He said Supp is a multi-racial party but everyone knows their place in the party and no one questioned why top posts in the party are held by Chinese.
Meanwhile, newspaper reports today said Moggie, who is also Minister of Energy, Communications and Multimedia, was non-commital when asked about the possibility of the TDC being postponed.
He was quoted as saying that so far none of the branches had asked for any postponement.