The Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) faction led by president Dr James Masing is going ahead with its own plans to hold the party elections 'as soon as possible'.

This is seen as the only option to save the party from the threat of de-registration.

The rival faction led by his deputy Sng Chee Hua will also be invited to take part in the triennial delegates conference (TDC) expected to be held before the end of the year, Masing told reporters after chairing an emergency supreme council meeting today.

He announced that an organising committee which will include the party's 11 elected representatives will meet tomorrow to discuss what he called the mechanics for staging the TDC.

"After this meeting, notices will be sent out to 28 registered divisions of the party asking them to hold their annual general meetings prior to the TDC," he said, adding that it had been suggested that the first five top principal office-bearers of each division would be delegates to the TDC.

"We want the delegates to decide (on the election of supreme council members), and we don't want the delegates to be manipulated," he said.

Today's supreme council meeting was attended by 21 members, including the principal office-bearers that Masing appointed on May 25 after he sacked six supreme council members mostly loyal to Sng.

Sng absent

Sng and supreme council members aligned to him had stayed away from the meeting. One pro-Sng member said as far as they were concerned the supreme council meeting was not properly convened.

PRS vice-president and Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Joseph Entulu attended the meeting briefly as he had to fly to Sibu. Another member and state assistant minister Larry Sng was absent.

PRS, the youngest member in the four-party ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, has been issued a show-cause letter by the Registrar of Societies (ROS) after Masing issued the termination letters to the six supreme council members without giving notice. This contravened the party's constitution.

Masing - who is the state land development minister - insisted that he was right and according to him, today's meeting was legal.

At worst, he said there is a dispute on the legality issue concerning the sacking but the majority of the party's elected representatives are behind him.

Masing also confirmed that he had replied to the ROS' show-cause letter. The PRS president said he and two other party leaders submitted the reply to the ROS in Putrajaya on Wednesday.

However, he declined to go into details, saying it was privileged information.