THE status of the Mambong state seat in the next state election has not been discussed by Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), even though it has accepted the membership of defecting state rep Dr Jerip Susil.

Susil, the assistant transport minister, was originally from the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), which fielded him in the Bidayuh-majority seat in the 2001 state election.

He joined PBB last Friday.

PBB deputy president Douglas Uggah today was evasive when asked by reporters if his party wanted to contest the seat in the coming state polls.

“It will be discussed (by the Gabungan Parti Sarawak supreme council) when the election comes,” he said, without elaborating.

When pressed if the seat had been discussed at the PBB supreme council meeting that “unanimously” accepted Susil’s application, Uggah said: “I can’t remember.”

“There were too many things being discussed. I can’t remember. All I remember was that we accepted his membership.”

A source who attended the meeting, however, said the status of the seat was not discussed.

Until 2016, the Mambong seat was known as Bengoh.

Susil was among SUPP’s handful of Dayak assemblymen who ditched the party – a few later returned to the SUPP fold – after its controversial 2011 triennial delegates conference to follow then deputy secretary-general Wong Soon Koh out after their faction lost the presidential election.

Wong, Susil and their supporters went on to form a pro-Barisan Nasional party of their own, which they called the United People’s Party (UPP).

UPP was later renamed Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB).

In the 2014 and 2016 state elections, Susil contested the seat as a direct BN candidate because, even though UPP had declared it was pro-BN, its membership to the coalition was perennially blocked by SUPP.

Under the BN-era seat distribution, the seats, parliamentary or state, are allocated to the party, not the candidate, but there have been cases in which the party got to keep the seat when its elected representative defected to another BN party.

On July 11, Susil dropped a bombshell by announcing that he was leaving PSB and giving up the deputy president position “with immediate effect”.

Even without a party, Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg retained him in the state administration.

He did so again when he reshuffled his cabinet on August 22.

With Susil’s admission, PBB now has 47 assemblymen – more than half of the 82 seat legislature.

This also means that six of the eight Bidayuh assemblymen in the legislature are with PBB – the leading party in the ruling four-party state coalition GPS.

Apart from PBB and SUPP, the other two parties are Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) and the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP).

With Susil now going to PBB, only two of the Dayak assemblymen who had defected from SUPP are still with PSB – Ranum Mina (Opar) and Johnicol Rayong (Engkilili). – October 26, 2019.