End of the road for BN friendly party

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Acting president announces dissolution of Teras, says party has served its purpose

Nansian showing the press statement when announcing the dissolution of Teras.

Nansian showing the press statement when announcing the dissolution of Teras.

KUCHING: The end is near for Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras), with its acting president Datuk Peter Nansian Ngusie announcing the dissolution of the party yesterday.

According to him, the party had exhausted its purpose, and there was no point for the party to further exist.

“I have consulted principal Central Executive Committee (CEC) members of Teras and decided to dissolve or deregister Teras and now the process is ongoing until it is done,” he said.

The primary objective of forming Teras, Nansian pointed out, was to accommodate BN friendly assembly persons under the BN-Plus concept.

During the just-concluded 11th state election, three of the five assembly persons of the party stood as direct BN candidates and two were not re-nominated. The ones dropped were Nansian and party secretary-general Datuk Sylvester Entrie Muran.

“When they stood in the state election, they pledged to join existing BN component parties only. Therefore, now they cannot go back to Teras which is only a BN-friendly party,” he told a press conference at his office here yesterday.

Nansian pointed out that the party which has more than 20,000 members will follow the choice of its three former Teras assemblymen and leaders; namely Tan Sri William Mawan (former Teras president); Rosey Yunus (former senior vice president) and Paulus Palu Gumbang (former treasurer general) to join any existing BN component party en bloc.

“Party members will go en bloc together with these three assemblymen to any of the BN component party they chose as agreed by BN.

“I think the three of them (assemblymen) will move to one party (together) as all of us will follow them,” he said.

However, Nansian said they could also join any BN party.

“But of course we cannot force all of them as agreed, if one or two don’t want to join we cannot force everybody, but that is our decision and that is what we are going to do, but if one or two choose not to we cannot force them,” he stressed.

With the dissolution of the party, it would be easier for the three assembly persons to decide where to go, he added.

He also said the dissolution of Teras would further strengthen BN and Team Adenan as there would be less number of parties to deal with.

“This is to strengthen BN with less parties to deal with and not spreading itself thin,” Nansian said.

Teras was formed in 2013 by loyalists of Nansian and Entrie after they (Nansian and Entrie) together with Rosey and Paulus were booted out of SPDP following a leadership crisis.

Then in 2014, Mawan, who at that time was SPDP president, brought them all back into SPDP only for that decision to be challenged by other SPDP leaders including those from Women and Youth wings.

Subsequently Mawan, Nansian, Entrie, Rosey and Paulus felt that their existence in SPDP was untenable.

So on May 15 2014, all fi ve leaders announced at a press conference at the State Legislative Assembly complex here that they had decided to quit SPDP and join Teras.