Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) has plunged into a deeper crisis with the Masing-Sng faction now set to form a rival supreme council (SC).

Faction leader Dr James Masing who said on Friday he and his group do not recognise the new appointments to the supreme council following Leo Moggie's resignation as president confirmed today that a separate supreme council would be set up at a meeting in Miri on Monday, June 30.

According to him, this will be followed by the extra-ordinary delegates conference (EDC) in Kapit early in July, likely to be ahead of the triennial delegates conference (TDC) that the party's supreme council meeting, chaired by Moggie, decided to hold on July 26-27 in Kuching.

The EDC that the Masing-Sng faction is going to hold will also fix the fate for their own TDC, Masing added.

What this means is that if the Masing-Sng faction go ahead with their plans to hold the various meetings the party will end up having two sets of committees.

Masing was today quoted by a local English-language tabloid The Malaysian Today as saying that his group would then "leave it to the Registrar of Societies to decide on which leadership is the rightful and legitimate one if the current crisis is not resolved by then."

No choice

The Masing-Sng faction's latest move appears to indicate little hope of any compromise, with Masing declaring that "the fight for the party's top post will definitely go on."

He did not, however, say how the fight for the party's post could go on when there are likely to be two separate TDCs being held either on the same day or on different days.

Political observers say Masing's group has been left with no other choice after Moggie suddenly resigned on Wednesday, allowed his deputy and Masing's main rival Daniel Tajem to take over as president, and relieved Masing and seven others aligned to him of their appointed posts in the SC and Tajem made the replacements.

"His group becomes a small minority as a result in the SC, and they will not have enough voice to make any decision or to stop any decision being made at the SC," one seasoned observer said.

Tajem will chair his first SC meeting tomorrow afternoon with the presence of the newly-appointed SC members. It will review all the preparations being made for the forthcoming TDC.

A party official who asked not to be quoted said the Masing-Sng faction now sees little alternative "after being pushed to a corner" not only by Moggie's sudden resignation but also Deputy Prime Miister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's statement that Moggie had seen both him and Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and that his action (in resigning and handing over to Tajem) offered the best solution in finding a solution to the crisis.

KL should not interfere

This was said to have angered Masing and many of his supporters, and some of them had even said that Kuala Lumpur should not interfere in the internal affairs of a political party in Sarawak.

Meanwhile, a local Chinese newspaper International Times quoted Barisan Nasional secretary general Mohamad Rahmat as saying that the BN respected Moggie's decision to step down and recognised Tajem as the new president of PBDS.

Most local newspapers - English, Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia - continued to give prominence to the on-going saga within PBDS. Newspapers are being snapped up like hotcakes in the past few days as the crisis in PBDS continues to worsen.

Meanwhile, Masing and his group are on a state-wide roadshow to explain to their members the latest developments within the party and their next course of action, especially their plans for a separate SC, EDC and TDC to elect their own leaders for the party.