Rep faces the sack, warns PKR leader

2009/10/25

KUCHING: Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) may have only two assemblymen in the Sarawak legislative assembly, but that would not stop the party from axing wayward Ngemah assemblyman Gabriel Adit when they get to discuss his show cause letter next month, a party source said yesterday.

Adit was served with a show cause letter last week for allegedly inciting some PKR members to back his attempt to form a new party. He has until the end of the month to reply.

Adit, whose constituents affectionately call him "White Beard", had a closed-door meeting with about 40 supporters in a Sibu restaurant on Oct 8.

The agenda of the meeting, the source said, was to get their backing for the new party, which he intended to register as Pakatan Rakyat Malaysia (PRM).



When he emerged from the meeting, Adit denied the meeting was to form PRM or that he was behind any move to form a new party.

He told the waiting reporters: "As of today, I am still a Parti Keadilan Rakyat member. But who knows what will happen tomorrow?"

At a press conference here yesterday, Penang PKR deputy chairman Dr Mansor Othman gave credence to the talk that Adit would get the boot.

"He announced that he wanted to leave the party. He said, among other reasons, he wanted to form a new party," Dr Mansor said after chairing a party meeting on the state leadership change.

He said Adit, who joined the party on Nov 16 last year, now wanted to leave due to financial reasons.

"He tried to make the party pay his debts which was an enormous sum.

"He owes CIMB a million (ringgit)."

Dr Mansor hinted that Adit's desire to leave was further fuelled when "some rich people here wanted to salvage him".

"It's a well-known fact that he is leaving, he intends to leave and form a new party.

"Once he forms a party, we will sack him."

Adit is a five-term assemblyman who first won the Ngemah seat on a Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS)-BN ticket in 1981.

When PBDS was deregistered, he joined the Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) rather than Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), the offshoot of PBDS, to whom the seat had been allocated.

Just before the 2006 state election, he was told he could not defend the seat because the seat was a PRS seat and not an SPDP seat.

He was advised to join PRS if he wanted to defend the seat.

Adit refused.

He resigned from SPDP to defend the seat as an independent candidate.

He defeated PRS-BN's Alexander Vincent and Sarawak National Party's Richard Lias in a three-cornered fight.

When his attempt to rejoin SPDP was thwarted by the BN's consensus rule, he joined PKR.

Under the rule, all BN component parties must agree, without exception, to the application of anyone who had contested against any BN candidates in any election to becoming a member of any BN component party.

Meanwhile, PKR will officially announce Baru Bian as the new state liaison chief in Kuala Lumpur today.