By William Isau
SIBU, March 27: Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) has identified several constituencies to contest in the 15th General Election (GE15) where it feels it will receive good support from the local Iban community.
However its president Bobby William said the party will only decide later whether it will contest in the election.
Speaking to reporters after the party’s Annual General Meeting here today, Bobby declined to reveal the seats.
“We will announce which seats we will contest when the time comes. But we will consider this matter (contesting) in more detail after this, whether to participate or not in GE15,” he said.
Touching on resolutions at the meeting, Bobby said the party had created three Deputy President posts with different portfolios for the 2022-2025 session.
He revealed that the three Deputy Presidents elected were Major (B) Moses Ripai with responsibility for integrity, discipline and welfare, Julius Enchana (youth and political strategy) and Kipli Ayom (finance, investment and resources).
Apart from this, he said that the party had agreed to use the abbreviation ‘PBDS’, dropping the word ‘Baru’ from when it was previously known as PBDS Baru.
In the meantime, PBDS is firmly open to working with any opposition party or coalition.
Bobby said party members had also agreed to move the PBDS headquarters from Sri Aman to Sibu Jaya.
“Among the resolutions we obtained in this meeting was to urge the government to refine the procedure for appointing community leaders by not basing them on political platforms, and to expedite the issue of recognising Bumiputera native customary rights (NCR) land ownership to be included in the Sarawak Land Code,” he added.
Apart from the appointment of the three new deputy presidents, also appointed were Sai Melaka (secretary-general), Saini Kakong (treasurer), Andrew Bungie Ipang (information chief), Robert Saweng (youth chief) and Susan George (Women chief).
A total of 38 people of various Dayak ethnicities were appointed as members of the PBDS supreme council.
PBDS also appointed Mengga Mikui as its Permanent Chairman and Christopher Sawan as its legal advisor.
To date, PBDS has a total of 978 members from across the State. — DayakDaily
