WEEKS of simmering anger boiled over as two factions in Sarawak PKR issued statements critical of each other as campaigning for party polls intensified.

A lengthy media statement by PKR Sarawak secretary Nicholas Bawin, attacking Julau MP Larry Sng, brought into the open the feud between one faction backing Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali and the faction led by Sng, which is rooting for former vice-president Rafizi Ramli.

Azmin and Rafizi are in a heated race for the post of deputy president in the party polls.

Sarawak PKR chairman Baru Bian, who is also works minister, has thrown his support behind Azmin.

PKR party members in Sarawak are slated to cast their votes on November 10.

Sng, who joined the party after the May 9 general election, made the infighting public after he slammed Baru over his perceived “soft” stand on corruption and failure to fire his political secretary, Zakaria Abdul Hamid, over alleged abuse of power.

Zakaria, accused of abusing his position as a public servant by promising to give contracts in return for support from Pahang party members, is now the subject of a Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigation.

He has been suspended from his position pending the investigation but Sng, in a Facebook post on September 26, ripped into Baru for not firing Zakaria.

“As a party, we have been fighting corruption & cronyism for two decades in the opposition. Now that we are finally in government, YB Baru is soft on corruption when his own staff is implicated in the scandal involving projects for votes.

“He should replace his appointed political secretary immediately to clear the good name of his office and ministry,” Sng wrote.

Sng again took to Facebook on Wednesday to blast Baru and fellow party members who had questioned the sudden spike in membership in his the former’s Julau branch.

The once former assistant minister in the chief minister’s office in Abdul Taib Mahmud’s Barisan Nasional administration, had bragged in a meeting with longhouse folk that the branch has the fastest growth in membership – from only 603 on June 26 to 13,000 a day later.

Sng said Baru and his supporters should not waste their time and effort to nullify Julau’s party membership but instead prioritise tackling people’s issues and addressing matters like corruption, which has been endemic in Sarawak.

Senior Sarawak leaders criticised Sng’s Facebook postings, describing them as being written by “someone who does not know the rules of behaviour and etiquette within a party”.

Bawin said, “YB Baru Bian does not respond to the type of allegations and accusations that Larry Sng has been making against him in his Facebook”, adding Sng does not seem to subscribe to the maxim of being innocent until proven guilty.

He said Baru, as a lawyer who respected the law, “will not dismiss a person summarily upon mere allegations made against them”.

On challenging the spike in membership, Bawin said Sng should learn to accept that it was “a legitimate process, according to the constitution of the party”.

“The fact that the name of the adun (assemblyman) from the BN was among the names registered during that single day gives the cabang (branch) reasonable grounds to lodge a protest.”

In August, Meluan assemblyman Rolland Duat was forced to deny he had joined PKR after an apparent picture of his membership card went viral on social media.

Duat told The Malaysian Insight the “membership was created by a mischievous person in my constituency”.

Meluan is one of the two state seats that make up the Julau parliamentary constituency.

PKR sources told The Malaysian Insight that Sng supporters had “copied wholesale” names on the electoral roll and submitted them for membership.

Application is done online so there is no requirement for signatures on the forms.

The party’s election committee is reportedly investigating the matter.

Bawin said that Sng had been posting threats in the party’s WhatsApp chat group about moves to bar his supporters, if they are found to be ineligible, from voting.

Bawin had suggested Sng’s past association with BN did not put him in good stead to talk about corruption.

“It is extremely interesting that he should talk about corruption when the entire world knows where Larry (Sng) came from.”

Sources told The Malaysian Insight the acceptance of Sng into PKR was “the biggest mistake” it could have made and likened what was brewing in the party to Sng and his father’s – businessman Sng Chee Hua – attempt to take over the leadership of Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) in 2006.

The father and son had tried to oust James Masing from PRS, pushing the party to the brink of deregistration.

When the Registrar of Societies declared the election of Masing’s supreme council legal in 2008, Masing went on a mass culling exercise, getting rid of Sng, his father – who was once deputy president of PRS – and their supporters. – October 16, 2018.