KUCHING, July 10 — Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) advised the DAP today to heed the Registrar of Societies’ (RoS) instruction to hold a party re-election or risk deregistration like what had happened to Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS).

“There is element of similarities between the problems faced by the DAP and those of PBDS before it was deregistered,” PRS president Tan Sri Dr James Masing said.

He referred to an instruction by RoS for PBDS to go for another round of party elections after the 2003 delegates conference was declared null and void due to the presence of “unauthorised” delegates from 15 branches.

The RoS then asked PBDS to hold another triennial delegates conference (TDC) in 2004, but based upon the delegates list in the 2000 TDC.

PBDS was eventually deregistered in October 21, 2004, when rival factions, one led by Masing and other by Datuk Seri Daniel Tajem, could not reach a compromise on the list of delegates.

The TDC was not held in 2004 after the deregistration.

Masing and his group then formed PRS, which was formally accepted as a replacement of PBDS in the state Barisan Nasional (BN).

Today, Masing said it was unwise for the DAP to ignore the instructions of the RoS.

“If the election is not proper, do a proper one. Once you comply, there is no reason for RoS to take drastic actions, like deregistration of the DAP,” he added, advising the DAP to use the delegates list in the party polls held on December 15, 2012 as instructed by RoS.

Masing, who is also the Sarawak deputy chief minister, said the party should not find any excuse, like the death of some delegates, to not use the 2012 list when calling for the party re-election in compliance with RoS’ instructions.

“But for those who were there before and they have not died, they should be asked to come to attend,” he said.

Last week, the RoS ordered DAP to hold yet another re-election of its central executive committee (CEC), citing issues with its re-election process in 2013.

RoS director-general Datuk Mohammad Razin Abdullah said that the fresh party polls must be based on the name list of DAP delegates who were eligible to vote in 2012, namely 2,576 delegates from 865 branches.

The DAP has in turn, argued that the 2012 internal election roll is no longer valid as some have left the party, whether through resignation, expulsion or death.