The Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS), a component of the state ruling coalition, looks like bracing for another leadership showdown at its forthcoming triennial delegates conference (TDC) tentatively scheduled for September this year.

This time, however, it looks like the party's information chief Dr James Jemut Masing, who lost to incumbent deputy president Daniel Tajem for the deputy president's post in the 2000 TDC is going for broke - it is now almost certain he will go for the presidency, should Leo Moggie anak Irok, the president, sticks to his decision to step down this year.

Yesterday, 22 party branches in the Sibu division in central Sarawak reportedly passed a joint resolution urging Masing, who is also state minister of social development and urbanisation, to stand for the top post.

According to the Sunday Tribune, in a report from Sibu, the timber-rich town in central Sarawak and where the branches held their joint annual general meetings (AGMs), 'Masing had accepted their call to contest.'

If Masing has, in fact, already decided to do so, this will put him head-on again with Tajem, a former deputy chief minister and former Malaysian envoy to New Zealand. The latter, according to reports, not o­nly has the support of most top party leaders, including Moggie, but also most of the some 300 party branches throughout Sarawak.

Non-committal

But in politics, a lot of things can happen between now and the time the TDC is held which again may be postponed by six months, if Moggie decides to do that to try and avert a split within the party.

The Sunday Tribune report , however, contrasted with the account in the Borneo Post, another English broadsheet, which quoted Masing as saying that "he will o­nly consider running for the party presidency if the delegates want to do so."

He added: "I am aware that many branches have proposed me for the post and former Pelagus state assemblyperson Sng Chee Hua who is o­ne of the vice presidents as my deputy."

The Borneo Post report indicated a more cautious Masing who went o­n to say: "At the moment, I am non-committal. I have learnt through experience that what you always want is not what you will get in the end."

"So let the delegates, the party supremo decide," he added, obviously hinting to the top leadership that perhaps they should pick him as the deputy president instead of the first-term member of parliament for Julau Joseph Salang as deputy president to take over from Tajem if Tajem were to become the new party leader in place of Moggie.

Ambitious Salang

But there's little secret that Salang,a former bank officer and now a highly-successful Iban businessman cum politician and PBDS treasurer, is harbouring hopes of taking over as deputy president.

His line is that he will definitely be prepared to move up if that is what the party leadership wants.

Salang is a close confidante of Leo and sits o­n the board of Telekoms Malaysia. He is also a director of Edward & Sons Sdn Bhd, whose managing director is PBDS secretary-general Stanley Ajang. Edward & Sons Sdn Bhd is a Class A registered contractor and it is involved in the consortium awarded the billion-ringgit Bakun dam project.

Under the amended party constitution, to be eligible to contest for the president's post, a prospective candidate must have endorsement from at least 30 per cent of party branches and for the deputy president's post, 25 per cent of the party branches.

Political observers see the latest development as part of a move by Masing supporters who now include Sng, his son and state assemblyperson for Pelagus Larry Sng, PBDS Youth leader and Assistant Minister Joseph Entulu, PBDS supreme council member and Assistant Minister Dublin Unting and another of the party's elected representatives John Sikie, who is also a PBDS supreme council member.

According to the Sunday Tribune today, Masing was quoted as saying that he had no objection to Sng being deputy president He said he could go along with Sng so long as party members would do likewise after the party elections.

After all, he added, PBDS ,although Dayak-based, is multi-racial and "it should discard the practice of ethnic chauvinism or confrontation or politics of hidden agenda."

"We can no longer say we fight for the Dayaks o­nly," Masing was also quoted as saying.

Obvious split

It has been obvious that since the bitter party feud in 2000, the two factions, o­ne led by Tajem and the other by Masing, have not really closed ranks.

This is often reflected in the attendance by members in the party's supreme council meetings which are usually held o­n a Saturday of every month in different places in the state.

After each meeting, Masing or most of his supporters would stay away from the post-meeting dinners that Moggie usually attends with other leaders like Tajem, Salang and Stanley.

Perhaps the Sunday Tribune's headline ' Battle royal in PBDS?' , after Saturday's joint AGM of the party's Sibu divisional branches, is an indication that the party is now bracing for another leadership showdown.

Regularising branches

Meanwhile, a PBDS supreme council member who asked not to be identified said Masing supporters had jumped the gun by turning what was supposed to be an exercise in regularising branches into branch annual general meetings in Sibu.

"A number of the branches purported to have voiced support for Masing to be the next party president still need to be regularised otherwise they are still not legitimate," he added.

There are about 300 branches throughout Sarawak - all within polling districts - and unless all are verified and regularised may turn out to be a contentious issue which in fact torpedoed Masing's previous attempt to win the deputy presidency.

"As some of us are aware, there is of course more to it than meets the eye in this latest development," the same PBDS supreme council member told malaysiakini. "We certainly hope there are no third-party meddling into the internal affairs of PBDS."