PARTI Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) deputy president Awang Tengah Ali Hassan shot down Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) president James Masing’s proposal that the four former Barisan Nasional components disband to form a single multiracial party, said a well-placed BN source.

The proposal was discussed at the state BN council meeting on Tuesday, when the parties decided to leave the coalition of which they had been members for 45 years.

Masing’s proposal called for PRS, PBB, Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), and Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) to be disbanded. 

“The single multi-racial party proposal was brought up for discussion and PBB, in particular Awang Tengah, didn’t agree to it,” the source told The Malaysian Insight.

PBB is the largest political party in Sarawak, and Awang Tengah is deputy president its Bumiputera wing for Malay and Melanau members.

After their exit from BN, the four parties announced the formation of Gabungan Parti Sarawak, or Coalition of Sarawak Parties. They later invited another former pro-BN party, the United People’s Party (UPP), to join the coalition.

The other PBB representatives at Tuesday’s meeting, party president Abang Johari Openg, deputy president Douglas Uggah, former state BN secretary-general Alexander Linggi Jugah, and former Wanita chief Fatimah Abdullah reserved their opinions on the proposal for a single multiracial party, the source said.

“Abang Johari didn’t say anything on the issue. Neither did Uggah,” he said.

The source said one of the objections Awang Tengah had raised was that the proposal was “too complicated”.

“Masing’s reply was that the grouping didn’t have the luxury of time and that a radical departure from the BN model is a must.”

The source said Masing took the silence of the PBB leaders as a sign of their agreement with Awang Tengah.

The Malaysian Insight understands that SUPP’s Dr Sim Kui Hian, and PDP’s Tiong King Sing also did not voice their opinions at the meeting.

Masing declined to comment on what had transpired at the meeting.

His proposal was sent in a memo to Chief Minister Abang Johari the day before the meeting.

In the memo, which went viral on social media, Masing said the former Sarawak BN parties should undergo a “metamorphosis”  in order to move forward from last month’s general election, which saw BN lose its 61-year-grip on power.

The ouster of BN showed communal-based political parties were no longer acceptable to Malaysians, Masing said in the memo.

He said it would be a big mistake if the parties did not evolve and move forward, especially in the way and manner in which we administer Sarawak” even though the results of the general election and 2016 state elections showed the “majority of Sarawakians are still with us”.

He had told The Malaysian Insight that BN lost the general election because Umno, the coalition’s lynchpin party, had become too arrogant and domineering.

“Their 60 years in power had made them blind to the problems of others and deaf to the cries of smaller groups in the coalition.

“The people had had enough of it and rejected Umno, and BN, as a result, got the backlash.”

Masing said if GPS was not properly structured, what happened to BN during the general election could be repeated at the state election in 2021.

State Pakatan Harapan and DAP chief Chong Chieng Jen said no matter by what name the four parties called themselves, they were “still the same old component parties of Sarawak BN, practising the same old BN policies”. – June 16, 2018.