KUCHING: ‘The merger of the minds’ a pact between Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) and Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) will continue despite the recent closed door meeting between SUPP and United People’s Party (UPP).
PRS president Tan Sri Dr James Masing said the meeting between SUPP and UPP had not altered the course of the merger of the minds.
“Of course, it will depend on SUPP’s reaction towards outsiders interfering into its business. As for us, the merger of the minds continues and outsiders should not interfere,” Masing who is the Land Development Minister told The Borneo Post yesterday.
Masing was responding to the latest development where SUPP and UPP met in a closed door session on Monday in the presence of state BN chairman Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem to iron out their differences and to talk over seat allocation for the coming state election which must be called by June next year.
There were speculations that meeting may impact the merger of the minds agreement if SUPP decided to work with UPP instead of with SPDP and PRS.
Following the meeting of SUPP and UPP, speculations were also rife that Adenan could call for a similar meeting between SPDP and Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras), a splinter party of SPDP.
When contacted, SPDP president Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing agreed with Masing that the ‘merger of the mind’ should be maintained and that both parties would work with SUPP to win the seats for BN in the coming state election.
For SPDP and PRS the ‘merger of the mind’ pact could be a prelude to the actual merger of the two parties, an idea that was mooted several years ago but had been put on the back burner until recent efforts by both parties to relook into the proposal.
However, Masing recently stated that the PRS-SPDP merger would take place only after the state election as both parties had to concentrate on the coming polls and that there still many issues to be ironed out.
Tiong concurred with Masing that the actual merger of their parties should take place only after the next state election.
“What is important is that both parties have agreed to merge but we are also realistic enough to know that it would not be a simple process and time is needed to fine tune our agreement to reach the right formula for the eventual merger,” he told The Borneo Post yesterday.
Tiong pointed out when the idea was first brought up both parties moved too fast and many members from both parties were not prepared for the merger.
The grassroots members must be properly briefed and consulted before the leaders could go ahead with the merger, he added.
“This should be a decision of the whole party not just by the leaders that is why both parties need to go down to the ground to gather feedback from grassroots members before taking the next step.”
He added for the time being SPDP and PRS would concentrate on the ‘merger of the mind’ and work with SUPP in strengthening BN.
Meanwhile, as of press time, SUPP president Senator Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian could not be reached for comments.-Borneo Post
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