KUCHING, April 17: Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak Baru (PBDSB) will take on five seats in the coming 14th General Election (GE14).
Party president Cobbold John said the party has chosen the seats of Puncak Borneo, Mas Gading, Lubuk Antu, Sri Aman and Selangau.
“We have our potential candidates for the five areas. We will announce all the names just before nomination day,” Cobbold said, at the launching of the “Heart of Borneo” fundraising campaign here today.
It was made known that Patrick Anek Uren will compete in Mas Gading, Johnny Chuat in Lubuk Antu and Sylvia John in Selangau.
Cobbold said they also have aspiring candidates in Kanowit, Serian and Julau, but the party has yet to screen them.
“We need to make sure these people who want to stand under PBDSB are truly committed to fight for the Dayaks. We want to make sure we win, not contest for fun or glamour,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Dayak Nation Institute (DANI) launched its “Heart of Borneo” fundraising campaign for PBDSB candidates who will contest in GE14.
Chairman Rapelson Richard Hamid said all the potential candidates have been self-financing themselves for GE14.
“Therefore we need to raise funds for this election and we seek public donations. It is important to send Dayak representatives to uphold natives’ rights in Parliament,” Rapelson said.
To avoid any misuse of funds for personal gain, DANI does not encourage members of the public to channel their donations straight to the candidates’ personal accounts.
Instead, the public may contribute funds to Dayak Nation Institute, through its CIMB bank account number 8009164872 .
Members of the public who donated are also asked send a copy of the bank-in slip to either dayak.institute@gmail.com via email, or to 0111-9882210 via WhatsApp for audit purposes.
“We want to avoid cases or issues that other political parties may raise and cause chaos if these funds were to go to a candidate’s personal account,” Rapelson said.
As a non-governmental organisation (NGO), DANI supports PBDSB’s manifesto which emphasises on the use of ‘Dayak’ as the ‘Dayak Nation’ to replace ‘other” or ‘Bumiputera’ in all documentation forms in Malaysia.
“DANI has been working actively to carry out activities mainly on Dayak Native Customary Rights (NCR) Land throughout the state, empowerment programmes and consultations for the Dayak communities,” he said.
DANI is also calling on other Dayak NGOs and communities to be united in the Dayak Unity Agenda under a locally-based Dayak opposition party. — DayakDaily
