The revived Sarawak National Party (Snap) will postpone its triennial general meeting scheduled for this month to focus on the state elections, which must be held by July next year, its president Edwin Dundang said today.

He said Snap would stay put with the Pakatan Rakyat to contest in the state seats which it had traditionally represented when it was a partner of the ruling Sarawak BN coalition.

"For Snap, Pakatan is the only political alternative and we will reactivate all the branches which have been dormant, especially over the last eight years, to be a vibrant political party again," he told reporters after chairing the party's central executive committee (CEC) meeting at its headquarters in Kuching.

Except for Bekenu, one of the newly created state constituencies, all the current seats under its offshoot, the Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP), were traditionally held by Snap prior to its deregistration in 2002 due to an internal leadership crisis.

However, following the party's success in getting the Court of Appeal to set aside its deregistration on June 26 this year, Dundang said, it was embarking on a re-registration exercise of its 123,000 members besides welcoming back those who had joined SPDP, including its president William Mawan.

Party expels suspended deputy president
    
He said the CEC had unanimously agreed to expel suspended party deputy president Ting Ling Kiew effective today for failing to give a satisfactory and acceptable reply to a show-cause letter dated April 6 last year.

Senior vice-president Kebing Wan had been appointed as the acting deputy president until the next triennial general meeting, he said.

Snap, one of Sarawak's oldest political parties, was set up in 1961 and has the distinction of producing the state's first chief minister, the late Stephen Kalong Ningkan.

- Bernama