Taib has big plans for Sng

Former Pelagus assemblyman Larry Sng is in a political limbo now but it may be only for a short time.

KUCHING: Former Pelagus assemblyman Larry Sng is still in political limbo. Sng, who is in Kuala Lumpur, has refused to disclose his next move though Chief Minister Taib Mahmud may have bigger plans for him.

“I will only be able to make a clearer comment after I return to Kuching in the next few days,” he said.

Sng, 32, has held the Pelagus seat since 2001. He was, however, dropped from the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidates list in the April 16 polls, despite Taib’s open support for him.

Sng, who holds three ministerial portfolios in Taib’s state cabinet, had in the run-up to the state polls, refused to decide his political fate leaving it to Taib.

Local analysts believe that not fielding Sng in the state polls simply meant that Taib had bigger plans for Sng.

It is common knowldge that Sng is Taib’s blue-eyed boy.Taib himself has said that Sng was hardworking and that his loyalty to BN was unquestionable.

Sng was 22 when he made his political debut as an assemblyman. He won the Pelagus seat on the now-defunct Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) ticket.

But in the 2006 polls, he defended his constituency under the Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) ticket. Following the demise of PBDS , PRS assumed control of all PBDS seats.

In 2009, Sng got into a leadership tussle with PRS president James Masing and was subsequently sacked from the party for insubordination. Attempts to return to the PRS fold proved futile as Masing stubbornly refused to accept Sng.

In the recent state polls, PRS which fielded Stanley Nyitar lost the Pelagus seat to independent George Lagong by 2,837 votes. Lagong is a relative of the Sng family.