AMPANG incumbent Zuraida Kamaruddin could find herself without a party ticket to contest on in the general election amid the ongoing Parti Bangsa Malaysia (PBM) presidential tussle, analysts said. 

As it stands, Larry Sng is claiming that he remains the president despite the party’s decision to make Zuraida the legitimate president in the annual general meeting (AGM) on October 7. The decision was confirmed in the minutes of PBM’s sixth supreme council meeting recently. 

Larry, the 43 year-old Julau incumbent, strongly disputes the supreme council’s decision. 

“Who is going to sign her watikah (letter of authorisation)? Unless the party manages to resolve who is the legal president, Larry probably would not sign the letter for her to stand under PBM,” political analyst James Chin told The Malaysian Insight. 

The Kuching-born Chin, the Asian governance expert at the University of Tasmania, however, said with the nomination next week, Larry and Zuraida “might have the incentive to come together”. 

Asked on what could have caused the tussle, Chin said his best guess was that Zuraida might not have accepted the terms of the handover of the party that had been under the control of the Sng family for the past decade. 

He said it was a common practice in such a handover to have an agreement on what the incoming president could and could not do in the party. 

“My conclusion is that Zuraida did not agree to the handover terms.” 

Universiti Putra Malaysia’s political science professor Jayum Jawan, however, believes Larry had second thoughts about handing over the presidency to Zuraida. 

“Perhaps he realised that as party president, if he could find a seat to win as well, he would be an important factor in the political chess game post-GE15. 

“If PBM could win a few more seats, that would raise his bargaining power a bit higher,” Jayum said. 

PBM started as the Sabah People’s Front before Larry’s businessman–politician father, Sng Chee Hua, took it over in 2012 and rebranded it the Sarawak Workers’ Party (SWP) to house members of Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) who were sacked over their failed attempt to wrest the presidency of the party. 

Larry ran in the 2013 general election as the SWP candidate in the Lubok Antu parliamentary seat and lost. 

With the ongoing feud, Chin’s assessment of PBM in GE15 is one of doom. 

“The power struggle, if not resolved, is almost certain to see the fledgling party get wiped out.” 

Sng family and party issues 

Chin said the infighting was another reason why Barisan Nasional did not take them seriously and refused to admit them into the coalition. 

“I also don’t know if this power struggle is karma for the Sng family,” Chin said when asked about the role Larry and his father had played in the power struggle in Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) in 2003 and also in Parti Rakyat Sarawak. 

The elder Sng was a principal character in James Masing’s clique in the fight for the PBDS presidency and when the party was deregistered as the feud could not be resolved, Masing and Sng went on to form PRS in 2003. 

Not long after that the Sngs staged an unsuccessful attempt to depose Masing and take over the party, culminating in them and their supporters getting the sack in 2007. 

“A lot of Dayaks will surely be very happy because they have been unhappy with the Sng family for many years,” Chin said. 

Jayum agreed. 

“Like his father before him, Larry is not a serious leader who represents the Dayaks or Ibans. 

“He jumps to where he can in order to enhance his political ambition. He switches sides whenever the situation suits him.” 

Also concurring with Chin’s analysis, Jayum said PBM, like most small and “sporadic” political parties, is not expected to perform well either in Sarawak, Sabah, or the peninsular. 

“There are established parties from both sides of the divide that have grassroots support that would be hard for new political parties that are led by little-known personalities to penetrate.” 

On Thursday, Sng suspended the party’s secretary-general Nor Hizwan Ahmad and information chief Zakaria Abdul Hamid with immediate effect, adding that the party’s records with the Registrar of Societies (RoS) showed that he was still the president. 

Following that, PBM deputy president Haniza Talha urged Sng to attend the party’s supreme council meeting on November 3 to resolve questions raised over Zuraida’s position as the legitimate president. 

Zuraida, a PKR founding member, has not said anything about the leadership tussle and is expected to contest in Ampang to retain her seat, which she won under the PKR banner. 

She and her supporters moved to PBM after leaving Bersatu, a party they joined after the Sheraton move in February 2020. – October 29, 2022.