Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) rival faction's deputy president Sng Chee Hua (photo) today strongly denied that his group had ever discussed or wanted to outst Leo Moggie as president with a vote of no confidence.

Rebutting Moggie's successor as president Daniel Tajem's claim, Sng told malaysiakini in a telephone interview that he acknowledged there was a discussion in a hotel room in Miri in April last year between Tajem, Dr Masing and himself about a new leadership line-up after Moggie had stepped down.

This was the meeting in which his group had described as the "Miri Formula" whereby Dr Masing, the then information chief and leaders of his faction, would endorse Tajem as president and that Masing himself would be deputy president in order to avoid a split in the party.

"We had never at any time discussed any plan to have Moggie removed as president should he refuse to step down to allow the Tajem-for-president-and-Masing-for-deputy president reconciliation plan," Sng said.

At a political gathering in an Iban longhouse at Nanga Bejait, Kanowit, yesterday morning, Tajem, in the presence of Moggie and other top party leaders, said the Masing group had suggested that if Moggie refused to step down, a vote of no confidence should be moved against Moggie.

Tajem added that he had made it clear then to the group during a meeting in the Miri hotel room that he was not prepared to go along with such a plan if it meant ousting Moggie with a vote of no confidence.

Tajem told a huge crowd at the gathering that he had explained that he would never go against Moggie whom he described as a long-time bosom pal and with whom he had struggled together to help the Dayak first through the Sarawak National Party (Snap) and then through PBDS.

Wants to do better

Sng also denied Moggie's claim that his group was planning to form a new political party.

"There are now two committees in PBDS, and our committee elected by the July 24 triennial delegates conference (TDC) in Bintulu wants to do better than the previous committee," he said.

"The party's membership records are in a mess, so we want to register members and issue membership cards, so we can have proper records, and that doesn't mean we want to set up a new political party," he added.

Moggie had told the longhouse gathering that he sensed there was a movement towards forming a new Dayak-based political party by the Masing group, based on what he described as feedbacks from the ground and a memebrship drive now underway.

Commenting on this, Sng claimed that Moggie was making this into an issue "in order to cover up the truth and the mistakes he had made."

Blame Moggie

He also claimed that if that anyone was to be blamed for the present crisis in PBDS it should be Moggie who had in fact failed or refused to respond to certain realities, by insisting that only certain people that he favoured should be president or deputy president.

He added that if Moggie had immediately given his blessing to the "Miri Formula", he believed that the problems within the party would not have reached the present stage.

Meanwhile, Dr Masing cancelled a press conference scheduled at 3 pm today to respond to Moggie's statement reportedly widely in today's newspapers.

Instead malaysiakini was informed that his publicity chief Dublin Unting was expected to issue a written press statement later today to rebut some of Moggie's claims.