KUALA LUMPUR – Parti Bangsa Malaysia’s (PBM) deputy president Haniza Talha has called on party president Larry Sng to attend the party’s supreme council meeting on November 3 in light of the latter’s decision to suspend the party’s secretary-general and information chief, today.
In a statement, Haniza said Sng’s attendance is important to resolve questions raised over the position of Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin as PBM’s legitimate president as announcement during the party’s annual general meeting (AGM) on October 7 and was confirmed during the meeting minutes of PBM’s sixth supreme council meeting recently.
“The call to hold the meeting falls under clause 21(1) of PBM’s constitution, which allows the party’s supreme council upon a written request by at least one-third of the total number of supreme council members to hold a meeting to resolve certain issues.”
Haniza’s response comes after Sng, who says he is still officially PBM president, has suspended the party’s secretary-general Nor Hizwan Ahmad and information chief Zakaria Abdul Hamid with immediate effect.
The suspensions were ordered after the party’s records with the Registrar of Societies (RoS) showed that Sng is still the president.
“According to the RoS records, I am still the legitimately recognised president of PBM,” Sng said in a Facebook post today.
He blamed Hizwan and Zakaria for the party’s supreme council meeting being held on October 7 without his instructions.
“The decision of the meeting was said to have appointed Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin as president, when in fact the position was never vacant,” Sng said.
On October 8, Hizwan had issued a statement on behalf of PBM announcing Zuraida as the party president.
Prior to that, she had been president-designate pending transition matters before her formal takeover of Sng’s duties as president.
Sng said this was “political manoeuvring” which had undermined trust in his leadership and caused confusion among party members and the public.
Sng said Hizwan, who was a close aide of Zuraida, and Zakaria, would be suspended until a disciplinary committee is set up to investigate confusion over who the party’s legitimate president is.
Hizwan’s duty as secretary-general will be taken over temporarily by deputy secretary-general Jenny Chiew.
Yesterday, Sng had also asserted that he was president and would be in charge of naming PBM’s GE15 candidates.
Sng and Zuraida were from PKR, but left the party. Sng did so to become an independent MP before forming PBM, while Zuraida joined Bersatu, which she later quit for PBM. – The Vibes, October 27, 2022
