All eyes are now o­n the five-member credentials committee set up o­n Sunday to scrutinise the status of Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) branches and determine their eligibility to send delegates to the triennial delegates conference from July 26-27.

Committee member Terence Temenggong told malaysiakini today that he had already been officially notified of his appointment and given the guidelines for the committee to follow.

The chairman is Dr Jawie Masing, an Iban private medical practitioner and a former state

assemblyperson. Other members are Patrick Sibat, Clement Eddy and Aaron Dagang. Henry Upang, the secretary, has no voting rights.

Hotly contested posts

Terence said no date had yet been fixed for the first meeting of the committee. This is, however, expected to be done very soon.

One of the first items o­n the agenda will be for committee members to collectively agree o­n certain working rules and o­n mechanisms to resolve differences of opinion should these arise.

Next, will be to fix the submission and closing dates for nominations of candidates for the various nominated posts, including those of president and deputy president. These are expected to be hotly contested by rival factions.

Deputy president Daniel Tajem is teaming up with treasurer-general Joseph Salang Gandum ( photo ) to vie for the posts of president and deputy president respectively.

They are expected to face information chief Dr James Masing and vice-president Sng Chee Hua.

Reliable sources told malaysiakini that although the Tajem-Salang faction managed to get their nominee - Jawie Masing - elected as committee chairman, a surprise was in the selection of Upang - proposed by their rivals - over Dagang.

The sources said that, Dagang, who was later appointed a member of the committee, lost to Upang by two votes, despite the fact that the Tajem-Salang clearly had the majority o­n their side.

The loss has led to considerable speculation within the party, that some element of cheating was involved in the secret ballot.

"From now o­nwards, we're going to be even more cautious," said a supporter of the Tajem-Galang faction.

"We can guess what some people will now do out of desperation or under extreme pressure of losing."

Serious disputes

The burden of planning the party elections will now rest o­n the credentials committee.

"There could potentially be some serious disputes over which of the branches could be considered as truly eligible to represent their areas given the likelihood of duplicity," said a PBDS leader.

"We will have two lists of branches to look at - o­ne from the Registrar of Societies (ROS) and o­ne from party headquarters. Obviously, any branch that is not in the ROS list has to be struck out," he added.

Meanwhile, PBDS supreme council member Wilfred Nissom criticised party president Leo Moggie for his recent remarks that he (Moggie) o­nly favours the party's two top posts being held by Dayaks and that he no longer supported Masing for the president's post.