PRS will veto new parties’ application to join Barisan, says Masing

Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) will veto the application of the state's two newest political parties to join Barisan Nasional if the parties insisted on defending seats which they won while representing other BN component parties.

PRS president Tan Sri Dr James Masing (pic) said he would “play by the BN rules” on seat allocation and consensus, and would object if the two parties did not relinquish their claims on the seats currently held by assemblymen.

The two parties are the United People's Party (UPP), formed by sacked and former members of the Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) with state Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Wong Soon Koh as president, and Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras), formed by former Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) members and headed by Social Development Minister Tan Sri William Mawan.

Mawan was also the former SPDP president, who quit the party when threatened with a vote of no-confidence.

Under BN’s rules, seats are allocated to a party, not incumbent.

In this case, the seats now held by the assemblymen who joined UPP are SUPP seats. Likewise, the seats held by assemblymen who joined Teras are those allocated to SPDP.

The key figures in UPP include three former SUPP assemblymen – Datuk Dr Jerip Susil (Bengoh), Ranum Mina (Opar) and Johnicol Rayong (Engkilili) – while the senior office-bearers in Teras are Tasik Biru assemblyman and Assistant Industrial Development Minister Datuk Peter Nansian , Assistant Welfare, Women and Family Development Minister Rosey Yunus (Bekenu), Assistant Public Utilities Minister Datuk Sylvester Entrie Muran (Marudi) and Batu Danau assemblyman Paulus Gumbang.

Rosey, at Teras' first party elections last Saturday, was elected senior vice-president, with Entrie as secretary-general and Gumbang treasurer-general.

“The rule of the BN must not be changed to serve a particular purpose,” Masing said when asked about his party’s position after the two parties handed in their applications to Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem at his Hari Raya open house at the Borneo Convention Centre in Kuching.

“I will play by the rules of the game that were in place from the very beginning.

“You can't keep on changing the goal posts just to suit their needs,” he said, implying that both Wong and Mawan abided by the BN rules when they were in BN but ignored them when they were out of the coalition.

“The rules are there to keep us intact and that is why BN has been around for 40 years.

“You do not change them for convenience sake,” said Masing whose PRS is the second largest component party in Sarawak  BN.

BN has set a precedent on the seat issue.

Prior to the 2008 general election, the members of parliament of the deregistered Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS), who had joined SPDP to “stay in the BN”, were given the ultimatum of resigning from SPDP and joining PRS, the “natural successor” of PBDS, or risk being dropped from defending their seats on the BN ticket as those seats belonged to PRS.

Masing said while BN was no nearer to finding a solution to the latest crisis, he is “very confident” it would reach one soon.

“We can do it (find a solution) in six months but the question is 'do we have the will power to do it?’” – July 29, 2014.