About 470 or more than two-third of 620 delegates from the previous triennial delegates conference (TDC) have confirmed their attendance at the gathering called by the Dr James Masing faction in Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS).

The rest of the delegates from various branches throughout Sarawak aligned to party president Daniel Tajem camp will stay away as they have been told the party elections scheduled on Oct 9-10 are off.

The Masing faction's chief co-ordinator for the gathering Sidi Munan told malaysiakini he did not know if Chief Minister and state BN chairperson Abdul Taib Mahmud will be attending tonight's dinner at a resort in Santubong, near Kuching.

The main focus of the gathering will be tomorrow morning during which Dr James Masing, who heads a group of nine of the party's 14 elected representatives will deliver an address which is expected to indicate the future direction of the anti-Tajem faction.

The group's de facto youth leader Joseph Entulu, who is also Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, as well as women's section head Doris Brodie will also address the gathering.

In an interview with the Malaysian Today , Masing, who is also state land development minister, was quoted as saying a lot would depend on the outcome of next Wednesday's meeting of the BN management committee to be chaired by Deputy Premier Najib Tun Razak.

Reviving PRS

In the interview, Masing hinted at the possibility of a new party being formed, which means reviving the plans to register Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS).

The key promoters, led by Sidi Munan, are all aligned to the Masing faction. They dropped the plans after PBDS was reinstated in March before the general election on the prime minister's directive, but with a condition that fresh polls be held as soon as possible to elect new leaders.

But disagreement over the proposal to use the year 2000 delegates list has apparently scuttled plans for the elections scheduled this weekend.

"That (new party) is one option," Masing said.

The other option, in the event PBDS is de-registered again, is for party members to join other component parties in the BN.

According to informed sources, the options are in that order of priority. Some leaders in the Masing faction feel that forming a new party may not be the best answer.

Going multi-racial

Wilfred Nissom, a senior member of the group, told malaysiakini that any new party would have to take cognizance of the fact that the proposed PRS is multi-racial and that eight of the nine elected representatives are Dayak or if all are taken into consideration, 13 of the 14 elected representatives are Dayaks.

"PRS has to be acceptable to members on the ground," he added.

PBDS has a large rural-based membership of about 130,000, mainly Dayaks with non Dayaks or Chinese forming a very small percentage.

A question that most political observers ask now is will the BN leadership allow a new party and admit it into the BN to accommodate the nine elected representatives from the Masing group and at the same time allow the remaining five elected representatives aligned to the Tajem group to remain in PBDS, as a way to resolve the troubles in PBDS once and for all?