The rival faction within Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) does not rule out the possibility of a new political party being formed, if the Registrar of Societies (ROS) determines that the current party is in violation of laws and de-registers it.

Information chief Dublin Unting - aligned to the Dr James Masing camp which is at loggerheads with rival president Daniel Tajem - said the move may be unavoidable if the party cannot be saved from de-registration.

The two rival factions are awaiting for the ROS to decide on the legality of the status of two separate committees elected at different triennial delegates conferences in July.

The Borneo Post today quoted Dublin as saying that his group did not want to see the party de-registered.

"We are doing all we can to avoid this. But if it happens, we will need another vehicle to continue serving the people," he told the paper.

He was referring to former party president Leo Moggie's claim over the weekend - at a mass gathering in Kanowit - that the Masing faction was attempting to form a new political party.

Dublin, however, said it was wrong for anyone to interpret an on-going membership drive and the setting up of 22 service centres by his faction as part of preparations to set up a new party.

'Master liar'

According to another newspaper, Malaysian Today, rival vice-president Richard Wil called Moggie "a master liar" for alleging that Masing had backed out of a leadership succession plan worked out in Miri in April last year.

Wil said Moggie had never endorsed the plan - known as the "Miri Formula" - under which Tajem and Masing would be president and deputy president respectively, after Moggie stepped down.

He claimed that Moggie had refused to endorse the plan because it excluded Joseph Salang Gandum in the line-up. Salang is Julau MP and widely known within PBDS circles as Moggie's blue-eye boy.

But at last Saturday's gathering, Moggie said Salang - since elected deputy president in the Tajem camp - was never in the running for the deputy president's post until recently.

This was confirmed by Tajem, who said he had spoken to Salang only earlier this year about being his running-mate.

Addressing some 4,000 people at the same gathering, Tajem acknowledged trying to arrange a discussion with Masing and his running-mater Sng Chee Hua over the post-Moggie leadership line-up.

But Tajem indicated that this did not proceed because there was a move - allegedly initiated by Sng - to have Moggie removed if he refused to step down as president.

Tajem claimed he had not been agreeable to the plan.