KUCHING: Two top former officials of the deregistered Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak Baru (PBDS Baru) have expressed hope that the party’s status will be activated again during the new federal administration under Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
Bobby William and Julius Enchana, who were respectively the president and secretary general of PBDS Baru at the time of its deregistration, said they wanted PBDS Baru to be revived as a political vehicle for the Dayak community.
They reasoned that under the current political scenario, PBDS Baru can be the voice for the Dayaks much like Umno is representing the Malays, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) representing the indigenous people and PAS representing those of Islamic faith.
They said the party if revived would not be siding the Pakatan Harapan or Perikatan Nasional, but the party’s direction would be more towards becoming a platform to voice out issues affecting the Dayaks.
“There is a need for the Dayak community as the biggest ethnic group in Sarawak to have PBDS Baru to represent their voice,” they said in a statement.
PBDS Baru, which was registered in 2013, was deregistered by the Registrar of Societies (ROS) on June 11 last year.
The deregistration was only found out few months later by the new committee led by Bobby, and they discovered it had been caused by the previous committees’ failure to submit annual returns from 2014 to 2017.
Julius in the same statement said an appeal against the deregistration was sent on Sept 22 last year to the Home Ministry and the ROS.
He added that a letter was also sent by Bobby to the previous prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.