Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) rival president Dr James Masing today dismissed former party president Leo Moggie's claim that he was a paranoid who had wanted to be party president at all costs right from the beginning.

Masing made it clear at a press conference this morning that it was not his intention in the beginning to go for the No 1 post in the party even after Moggie had indicated he would be stepping down as president.

That was why, he explained, there was a move culminating in the so-called Miri Formula that was proposed by his own group in Miri in March last year for Moggie's deputy president Daniel Tajem to take over as president and for him (Masing) to be deputy president.

Masing, who is also state social development and urbanisation minister, claimed that although he had supported Tajem to be Moggie's successor as president, there was no reciprocity from Tajem himself later, claiming the latter had changed his mind either on his own or forced by others to do so.

(At a gathering in Moggie's longhouse in Nanga Bejait, Kanowit, last weekend Tajem said he had refused to go along with the proposed succession plan because he did not want to be a party to any scheme to oust Moggie, whom he regarded as a bosom pal from their young days, especially with a vote of no confidence, as had been allegedly suggested by the Masing group.)

Masing also denied there was any move to pass a vote of no-confidence on Moggie.

He said that both Moggie and Tajem had been fed with misleading information by some people around them.

KL meeting

Masing however acknowledged there was a meeting soon after in Moggie's ministerial office in Kuala Lumpur, also in March last year, during which Moggie was reported as endorsing the leadership succession plan.

Masing was among top party leaders present at the meeting.

He also confirmed that after the plan was endorsed in Moggie's presence, the then president had advised the two groups to go back to Sarawak and end their campaign against each other on the ground.

But Masing said it was not his group that had gone on the offensive.

He also said he had no choice but to make a stand after Tajem, the then deputy president, made a public statement that he never considered Masing as his running-mate for the deputy president's post.

"I had two choices left either to hang up my boots and leave the political scene or I fight," he added.

"So in March this year, before leaving for New Zealand to spend my leave, I made an announcement in Kuching to accept nominations from branches for the president's post."

Masing said it was wrong for Moggie to call him a paranoid claiming that he wanted to be party president and would go to any length to achieve his ambition.

Masing's flashback

The truth, according to him, was that prior to his public announcement earlier this year to stand for the president's post, he had on at least three occasions acted in a manner for which he did not deserve to be called a paranoid.

The first was during a supreme council meeting in the year 2000 when Moggie indicated he wanted to step down as president. He said he and all his supporters and the rest of the supreme council had rejected this.

The next occasion was in March 2002 when he supported Tajem to be Moggie's successor as president and called on the branches and delegates who attended the 2000 triennial delegates conference (TDC) to a meeting in Miri to endorse the plan.

"I've never talked either privately or publicly with Moggie about wanting to be president of PBDS. It was actually Moggie himself who said that I should be president. He was the one who had said it publicly that he wanted me to take over," Masing said.

Masing justified the various actions that his group took after "I had to reluctantly announce I was going for the No 1 post" earlier this year to fight on.

He said it was not him but rather Moggie, who is the Minister of Energy,Communications and Multimedia, who is a paranoid "out of fear that his own group will lose the war".

He added that Moggie came out of self-proclaimed retirement from politics, staking his 30 years political career at risk in making a recent public statement that Daniel Tajem is the legally elected president of the party.

Masing said he would rather leave the leadership claim issue to the Registrar of Societies (ROS) to determine. He described the Barisan Nasional supreme council's decision not to invite any of the factions to the meeting this weekend in Kuala Lumpur as "a fair one."

Poser on attendance

During the press conference, Masing also sought to raise doubts on the number of branches that had actually supported Tajem and his group who had been returned unopposed in the July party elections.

According to him, from the information made available from a reliable source, only 18 percent of branches with less than 70 delegates had attended the Santubong TDC.

"You need at least 30 percent of branches to qualify to be nominated as president," he added.

Masing also denied reports that his group was forming a new political party, and explained that his group was going on a membership drive throughout Sarawak in order to strengthen PBDS.

Referring to his publicity chief Dublin Unting's recent statement, he said forming a new political party remained an option, however, in the event the party was de-registered.