The wheel appears almost to have come full circle for the Sarawak National Party (Snap) and Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS). In the last few weeks intense discussions have been going on between the James Wong Kim Min faction of Snap and PBDS leaders aimed at a merger of both parties, some 20 years after factional fighting in Snap led to the creation of the splinter, PBDS.

Now, apparently, internecine feuding in Snap has prompted the Wong (photo)faction of Snap to move towards a merger with its former nemesis, PBDS. The coming together of Wong and the Leo Moggie-led PBDS is a rapproachment of old rivals whose antagonism was fanned by a presidential contest in Snap in 1981 that saw loser Moggie walking out with his supporters to form PBDS.

A PBDS supreme council member, who asked to remain anonymous, said yesterday in Kuching that lawyers are looking at a new constitution for the to-be-merged entities while senior officials of both sides are discussing the modalities.

Secret talks

Negotiations, held over the last few weeks in secret, were out in the open yesterday in Kuching as members of the Snap faction opposed to Wong got wind of the merger talks.

"They are flatly opposed," said the same supreme council member about the reaction of the William Mawan (photo) faction of Snap that is in revolt against Wong.

Last Monday, the Registrar of Societies (ROC) was supposed to have ruled on which faction of Snap held the legally recognised authority. The Wong faction and its bitter rivals, the Mawan group, have been at loggerheads from last April after the sacking of Snap member of parliament for Bintulu, Tiong King Sing.

Both factions had referred the dispute over their legitimacy to the ROC who did not announce his decision but instead handed over the file to Home Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Businessman Tiong had run afoul of party president Wong over alleged breach of understandings they shared when the latter approved his candidacy for the Bintulu seat, for which there has long been a stiff contest between Barisan Nasional and the opposition DAP.

Bad blood

Tiong's sacking and the subsequent turbulence in Snap was reminiscent of the expulsion of then Snap senior vice-president Daniel Tajem in 1982 after he was accused of campaigning for an independent candidate, Edwin Tangkun, against Snap member Wellington Rufus Nanang in the parliamentary elections that year for the Sri Aman constituency.

Tangkun won and this led to bad blood in Snap between then deputy president and chief financier Wong and Tajem who was already the deputy chief minister of Sarawak.

Tajem was sacked, an action that triggered dissidence within the party, leading to secretary-general Moggie challenging Wong for the president's post, vacated by Dunstan Endawie.

Wong went on to become president of Snap, Endawie proceeded to become Malaysian High Commissioner to New Zealand, just as in recent years Tajem was dropped from the PBDS parliamentary and state assembly line-ups and made envoy to New Zealand in Sarawak's politics intricate compromise of competing forces.

Now Wong is intent on reconciling with Tajem, the PBDS deputy president, and Moggie is supportive where he would once have been chary because of the merger's potential to provoke adversity from the dominant Parti Bersatu Bumiputra Sarawak (PBB) and the Chinese majority Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP). The PBB, SUPP, PBDS and Snap are partners in the ruling coalition.