BEHIND SPDP AND PRS PROPOSED MERGER

Kuching
Thursday, 25th February 2010

James Masing and the Group of  Five 5 SPDP assemblymen  started Another Crisis In dayak Majority Parties!...Merger Will not happen Without William Mawan

Introduction

Dayak with it total population of about 1, 178,750 or 50% of Sarawak total population , is the biggest group in Sarawak.

Politically they are represented by all the parties in Sarawak, by the governing parties and as well as the opposition. In the governing parties , they are represented by the Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) or Sarawak People Party, Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP), Sarawak United People Party (SUPP) and Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB). Whereas in the opposition they are represent by Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Sarawak National party (SNAP) and the latest by Democratic Action Party (DAP).

What is Democracy and Why dayak Still marginalised

“Our constitution is named a democracy, because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. But our laws secure equal justice for all in their private disputes and our public opinion welcomes and honours talent in every branch of achievement …on the ground of excellent alone…our citizen attend both to public and private duties and do not allow absorption in their various affairs to interfere with their knowledge of the city’s we decide or debate, carefully and in person of matters of policy holding…that acts are foredoomed to failure when undertaken discussed”...Pericles definition of democracy in Athens

Democracy is a form of government in which the policy is decided by the preference of the majority in a decision-making process, usually elections. Democracy as a form of government always has the following characteristics:

• There is a demos, a group which makes political decisions by some form of collective procedure. In modern democracies the demos is the nation, and citizenship is usually equivalent to membership.

• There is a territory where the decisions apply, and where the demos are resident. In modern democracies, the territory is the nation-state.

• There is a decision-making procedure, which is either direct (for instance a referendum) or indirect (for instance election of a parliament).

Based on the definition of the democracy above, the majority should rule. But why the dayak, despite being the majority they cannot rule? Dayak as I said earlier are representing by all of the political parties. Out of these so many political parties they are only majority in PRS and SPDP. This situation has caused their strength diluted.

SPDP Crisis and the Proposed Merger With PRS

The crisis in SPDP started on 22nd January 2010 when it President William Mawan Ikom replaced Sylvester Entri with Wilson Balang as SPDP secretary general. Mawan reasoned to replace Sylvester was to strengthen the party especially in the northern region of Sarawak.

But the group align to Sylvester Entri said that they walked out in protest over the appointment of Balang as the new secretary-general and Paul Igai, political secretary to the chief minister as his deputy. They believed that Sylvester Enteri was replaced as the secretary-general after he was alleged to have supported Philip Ngo in challenging the incumbent deputy president Peter Nyarok in the party elections last month.

On 21st February 2010, the group align to Sylvester Entri made a press statement that they will merge with PRS.

Conclusions

No matter what they called it, they were actually splitting from SPDP. The merger without the approval of both party Presidents will not going to happen. If merger between the two parties materialised, James Masing at this moment has an advantages over William Mawan as the new entity president. But will William Mawan accept the deputy president post. Judging from the dayak political history (take PBDS as an example) William Mawan would not accept James Masing as a President. So toward the end….Merger between SPDP and PRS will not going to happen and these 5 selfish representatives will be partiless.

This crisis will definitely weaken BN in the coming state election. Pakatan Rakyat (PR) must take this opportunity to wrest power from BN.

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