The possibility of Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) being deregistered is getting higher as it is now clear that the two factions in the party will not reconcile, the Borneo Post reported today.

It is learnt that the ROS will soon call the leaders of both factions - Dr James Masing and Larry Sng - to a meeting that could decide the fate of the party.

If both factions can sit down together and agree to make peace, the ROS would not have to let the axe fall, but the two factions now seem to agree that reconciliation is impossible, the paper said.

When the two camps met for their first (and possibly last) peace talk in Kuala Lumpur on March 19, it turned sour from the start.

The Sng group had insisted at the meeting that Masing, also the state land development minister, be expelled from the party but this was unacceptable to Masing's negotiating team, led by Dublin Unting.

Unting, a PRS vice-president and an assistant minister, told The Borneo Post that reconciliation is now impossible with the condition set by the Sng group.

Cannot have two presidents

If there were no pre-conditions, Unting said that Masing could even agree to return the PRS supreme council to status quo before the sacking of several council members in May last year which brought the party's internal strife into the open.

He did not deny the possibility that Masing could even consider agreeing to call a fresh triennial delegates conference (TDC) to allow the party's delegates to choose their leaders.

On the ROS position towards the stalemate in PRS, Unting said, "If you look at the law, a party cannot have two supreme councils or two presidents and there is no way to avoid deregistration".

Meanwhile, Sng who was elected his group's president on March 30 this year, said he was not aware of any meeting being called by ROS but he was confident that the party would not be deregistered.

"As far as we are concerned, we didn't do anything constitutionally wrong and questions about deregistration is just hypothetical," said Sng, also an assistant minister.

PRS is the youngest Barisan Nasional (BN) party in the country and it could become the third one to be deregistered in Sarawak because of leadership conflicts.

Snap and PBDS were the first two to get the ROS chop.