End of the road for PBDS

It's all over for Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak. The two-year leadership clash has left it deregistered for a second time. SUHAINI AZNAM has the analysis, 

The party is over for Sarawak’s main representative of the Dayak people, the Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS). It was deregistered on Oct 21 for a second and final time, putting an end to a bitter two-year leadership tug-of-war. 

Of the two contenders, the faction led by state Land Development Minister Datuk Seri Dr James Masing, 55, has emerged with the upper hand. He already has a longboat to go campaigning on, the newly-registered Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) led by his, ally Sidi Munan. 

His rival, Datuk Seri Daniel Tajem, a PBDS founder and one-time deputy chief minister, could only watch furiously from the sidelines. A day later, he announced that he was challenging the deregistration in court. 

Masing’s initial relief at the outcome reflected his sense of direction. Among other factors, Sarawakians privately concede that he has Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud’s ear. 

He is slightly younger than Tajem, which will give him a margin on stamina. And he is media savvy having been PBDS information chief.  

A pleasant but wary Tajem has steadfastly avoided selected press, leaving it to his lieutenants to speak for him. 

In essence, the rivalry was really a clash of personalities. Both Masing and Tajem wanted to be chief. Neither was willing to give way. The rest of the players were just camp followers. 

According to a Tajem loyalist, Masing had gone on road shows and declared himself their leader no less than four times in the past year. Such was the degree of his desperation, it was suggested. 

Several MPs had dreaded that history was to repeat itself. The PBDS had splintered from the Sarawak National Party in 1983 also over a leadership struggle. This time, both the Masing and Tajem factions had accused the other of being suicidal. 

For the battle-weary Masing, it has been a protracted struggle. As Moggie’s one-time political secretary and right-hand man, he had been seen as the favoured one, caught flat-footed by Moggie’s supposedly “sudden resignation.” 

Somewhere along the line, Moggie had shifted to Tajem, with whom he shares a history of alliance. The two had been involved in the attempt to overthrow Taib in the Ming Court affair, in collusion with the now defunct Permas led by Taib’s uncle and rival Tun Abdul Rahman Yaacob. Taib cannot forgive that.  

PBDS’ demise will initially confuse the Dayaks, for whom it had been a political pillar. Masing will go from longhouse to longhouse not to drum up support for his faction this time, but to explain the name change and to urge his people to vote the PRS. 

While Tajem takes the legal-constitutional route, Masing is already beating the political drums. He has cheekily urged all former PBDS members to join the PRS: different name, same body and spirit. 

But in its 21 years, PBDS has not moved the Dayak agenda very far. This is the legacy its successor will inherit. 

By its own MPs’ admission, the PBDS remained a poor, rural party to its end. Its members lacked education and thus could be easily swayed. In longhouses, money talked. 

The Dayaks, who had once rallied around the PBDS, have been disappointed. 

The Sarawak Tribune noted that the PBDS had once tried to set up a technical education fund for poor Dayak students but this had failed due to poor management. No significant middle class had emerged. 

Divided by distance and rivers, the Dayak remain fragmented. Loyalties are to their tuai rumah (longhouse chieftain) and penghulu (village head). Their expectations of Moggie as party president – and other educated PBDS leaders with links to Kuala Lumpur – were perhaps excessive; and in a very KL-centric coalition, they had found it difficult to deliver. 

Moving ahead, while Barisan Nasional had earlier declared that forming a splinter party would not be an option, it seems to have changed its mind on that. In Kuching, Barisan secretary-general Datuk Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad, voicing a personal opinion, had reportedly said that “Barisan is a big party. There is always room to have more children in the family.” 

PBDS was first deregistered last December. As a political expediency, it was reinstated just three days before the March polls. It won all its six parliamentary seats under the Barisan banner but several with margins cut by half as each faction campaigned against the other’s proxies. 

PBDS’ deregistration was not, apparently, part of Radzi’s initial recommendation to the Barisan Supreme Council. The idea earlier was to save the PBDS. But with state elections due within two years, Taib cannot afford to wait. He has to tidy up the Dayak house now. 

At national level, with six parliamentary seats, the PBDS was not crucial to Barisan. It was a nice-to-have ribbon on the bow, not the gift itself, which the peninsular parties had to slug out for themselves. 

It was far more significant at state level. The PBDS had eight out of a total of 24 Dayak assemblymen. But as a party, it could have run interference against coalition partners through campaigns and by fielding independents. 

Baru Bian, 46, the ex-PBDS member who had run and lost on an independent ticket in the recent Ba’Kelalan by-election, for instance, allegedly had been backed by Tajem’s group. 

While Tajem is fighting a lost battle, Masing has moved on. Eight elected MPs and assemblymen have already been accepted into the PRS, together with 106 other members. Taib in turn accepted the PRS application to join the state Barisan. 

Masing has already indicated his willingness to lead the PRS. It would not be beyond imagination to see the PRS adopt the name “Dayak” at some point down the line. 

What is important, however, is what PRS’ leaders will do for the Dayak people. One million strong and still lagging behind the other communities in their own state, they deserve better than to have tourists gawk at their feathers and tramp through their longhouses. They deserve dignity.