Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS), set up in 1983 as a breakaway group from the Sarawak National Party (Snap), is as good as dead and gone - itself now the victim of a similar leadership tussle from within.

With its deregistration announced on Oct 21, the party's 14 elected representatives found themselves, along with a claimed membership of 130,000, without a home.

But not, as it turned out, for long as nine of the elected representatives (six state assemblypersons and three MPs) in the faction led by State Land Development Minister Dr James Masing and their supporters, found another political home in the newly registered Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS).

All of a sudden PRS appeared like a rabbit from a magician's hat.

Registered as a multi-racial party but with core Dayak support, the speed of the approval was almost too good to be true. It even beat Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) whose registration took a little longer.