PBDS Youth chiefs merger comments upset party and Snap
Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) Youth chief Joseph Entulu has upset his own party and Sarawak National Party (Snap) leaders with his comments on the on-going crisis in Snap — about a merger talk between the two parties.
In comments quoted by national news agency Bernama and headlined by local newspapers on Monday, Entulu, who is also a Sarawak assistant minister, was reported as hinting that a merger talk between PBDS and Snap was in the offing to bring all Dayak leaders together.
This was not the end of what he was reported to have also said. According to the Bernama report, he had also said the merger could take place once those PBDS leaders, including party president Leo Moggie, who left Snap during the Snap crisis in the early 1980s either resigned or quit.
This would seem to imply PBDS president Leo Moggie anak Irok and deputy president Daniel Tajem, among others, who quit Snap in 1983 after they lost the party elections to James Wong Kim Min and his supporters then.
Entulu is aligned to PBDS information chief and Minister of Social Development and Urbanisation Dr James Jemut Masing.
He had also suggested that a merger of the two parties could go ahead after the present Snap leaders, including James Wong, stepped down. This imply that the present leaders in both parties are possible stumbling blocks to Dayak politicians getting together under a single political party.
Deny knowledge
Masing's immediate reaction to the publication of Entulu's comments was to deny knowledge of any talk about a merger between the two component parties.
"I am not aware of such talk and as such, the 'good and bad side of it' doesn't arise," he said, adding that he was equally surprised by the news report. He also refused to comment on whether the two parties should sit down and talk about such a proposal, if any.
"I am not in a position to make any statement on this. I am very junior in the party," he added. This comment is seen as intended as a public reprimand on Entulu, considering that a PBDS junior leader is not entitled to make any statement, even if there is such a proposal, on behalf of the party.
Snap deputy secretary-general Edmund Stanley Jugol said he found Entulu's statement "totally laughable" when he was told about the news report. He added: "Maybe he (Entulu) is revealing some plan that we were never aware of before."
Malaysiakini understands that Entulu has received several phone calls from senior party leaders who queried him on his statement.
Entulu later issued a signed press statement which was faxed to Bernama and the local newspapers, claiming to have been "misreported" by the national news agency.
"In my speech, delivered in Iban, I used metaphors that 'PBDS-Snap merger can happen tomorrow, next week or next year', meaning anytime in the future," he said.
He added it was said during a political speech at a longhouse in Bintulu on Saturday night during a Gawai Ngiling Tikai (a Gawai ceremony).
"I told them that they should stop politicking by not identifying themselves too much as a member of one or another political party."
Sensational reporting
Entulu claimed that the reporter he spoke to had "failed to report that there were no unofficial meetings, besides the official ones, that had taken place between leaders of both parties over the likelihood of a merger".
"The issue of a merger 'soon' does not arise and (the report) is just sensational reporting," said Entulu.
Entulu also denied he had asked for the retirement of leaders involved in the 1983 Snap leadership crisis which led to the formation of breakaway party PBDS.
He added: "During the interview (with the reporter), I stated that for any future merger talk to succeed, the new generation of Dayak leaders must start thinking about and institute discussion on the issue."
Several Snap and PBDS leaders malaysiakini spoke to questioned why Entulu bothered to raise the issue of a merger between the two parties at this point of time, especially when there is a serious crisis within Snap and that within PDBS itself "the crisis is still far from resolved".
Stronger representation
A merger between Snap and PBDS which have 10 parliamentary seats and 13 state seats between them could at this time create some uneasiness. This is especially so among certain leaders of other BN parties, as this could be seen as an attempt to try and bring the Dayaks together under a single umbrella and to fight for a stronger voice and stronger representation in the government.
Contrary to Entulu's comments, there has been talks of a connection between the crisis and the call to Moggie, who is also the federal Minister of Energy, Communications and Multimedia, to step down immediately as party chief, and the present crisis in Snap which reflects a move within that party to get rid of the James Wong as president 'in pursuit of a larger objective'.
"That objective, according to one seasoned politician, is firstly, part of a scheme to see the eventual dissolution of both Snap and PBDS and, secondly, to bring all bumiputras under a single political umbrella." He did not elaborate.
There has always been on and off talks since the early 1970s when Tun Abdul Rahman became Chief Minister and merged his own party Parti Bumiputra with the Iban-based Parti Pesaka to form Parti Pesaka-Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB) that the Umno would one day spread its wings to Sarawak — like it did in Sabah with the dissolution of the United Sabah National Organisation (Usno), a party founded by the late Tun Mustapha Harun.
"The reporter in question did not quote Entulu out of context," one senior journalist who asked not to be identified told malaysiakini today. "The trouble is Entulu may have inadvertently revealed a little secret and may have been thinking aloud on the plan a little too soon."
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