Sarawak assistant minister and Pelagus state assemblyperson Larry Sng has broken ranks with the faction led by Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) president Dr James Masing.

He is now supporting the rival faction led by his father and PRS deputy president Sng Chee Hua. The 28-year-old politician gives several reasons for this move.

He said Masing has not made any serious efforts to reconcile the differences within the leadership. Masing only consulted a small group of leaders and sidelined him from serious discussions.

Larry said the Women and Youth sections in his Pelagus division held a meeting recently and passed a resolution urging him not to take up the offer to become information chief in the Masing faction. Larry was given until Jan 23 to decide on whether to accept the post.

He said there is no point for him to consider such an offer where there is no sincerity on Masing's part as there is a lot of mistrust by his faction merely because he is the son of the deputy president.

With Larry breaking ranks from the Masing faction, this has given a morale booster to the Sng faction which now has two elected representatives against Masing faction's nine elected representatives. The other elected representative in the Sng camp is Sri Aman MP Jimmy Donald, one of the party's vice presidents.

Olive branch extended

Meanwhile, PRS secretary-general Sidi Munan told malaysiakini that Larry, for the first time, attended the party's supreme council meeting chaired by his father on Jan 17.

He said Larry attended in his capacity as deputy secretary-general and supreme council member.

Another supreme council member who had not attended the meeting since the party leadership crisis also attended for the first time.

Sidi disclosed that the meeting also accepted the resignation of Clement Eddy as treasurer-general. Clement, a lawyer and businessman, wanted to focus more on his business.

However, Clement's name was among those included in the list of new office-bearers following the Masing faction's triennial delegates conference (TDC) held last Dec.

"We now have a majority in the supreme council," Sidi told malaysiakini .

The party will hold its TDC on March 30 at a leading hotel in Kuching to elect new office-bearers.

It is learnt that the Sng faction has extended an olive branch to get the elected representatives of the now defunct Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) to join them. They are Deputy Foreign Minister and Julau MP Joseph Salang, Kanowit MP Aaron Dagang and Lubok Antu MP Jawag Gerang as well as Ngemah state assemblyperson Gabriel Adit.

There has been no response yet.

In a related matter, Sidi said the party headquarters is expecting the Registrar of Societies (ROS) to respond soon to the complaints made against the Masing faction over the question of the second party headquarters in Pending, Kuching and the public display of the new party logo.

"We hope the ROS will not drag its feet in acting on the complaints," he added.