DAP is playing the "victim" card in ROS issue

DAP has filed a judicial review at the High Court seeking an order to quash a decision by the Register of Societies (ROS) to withhold recognition of its Central Executive Committee (CEC) which was re-elected on Sept 29, 2013.

This re-election, in fact, was held because the ROS would not recognise the party’s first election of Dec 15, 2012.

In the application filed by DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng recently on Jan 22, the party is also seeking for a declaration that the ROS’ decision is invalid under the law. The matter is fixed for hearing before High Court judge Zaleha Yusof on March 11.

“We say ROS did not have the power under the Societies Act to withhold recognition of a lawfully elected CEC,” said DAP’s legal bureau chairman and Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo earlier this week.

The reason that the ROS is withholding recognition of DAP’s CEC is because of more than a dozen complaint letters which the party’s own members and leaders sent to the ROS.

The complaints that the ROS received are as follows:
1. Inadequate notice period (which should have been 10 weeks, as what DAP chairman Karpal Singh himself admitted).
2. The 851 delegates who were absent or not invited to the re-election when they were eligible to attend and vote at the meeting.
3. The 985 instead of 865 branches that were involved in the re-election.
4. The delegates’ list Dec 15, 2012 was not used, as they should have.
5. The proper notice of the meeting was not issued.
6. The election was not transparent.
7. Suspected elements of fraud.
8. Suspicious election results.
9. Manipulation of votes.

All these allegations were raised by DAP’s own members and leaders.

Playing victim
DAP’s veteran leader Lim Kit Siang should address these issues and explain how this happened and why nothing has been done to correct these violations in spite of repeated requests by the ROS.

DAP is trying to play the victim in this tussle with the ROS although from the admissions of the party’s own members and leaders, DAP is actually the aggressor that not only violated the law but is stubbornly refusing to correct the transgressions.

Is DAP purposely inviting action from the ROS so that it can play the sympathy card and pretend that it is the victim of persecution and injustice?

DAP is accusing the ROS of victimising the party.

DAP must remember that even Umno is not exempted from following the rules, as the Umno crisis of 1988 has proven.

And worse of all, DAP did not just violate the rules of the ROS, it actually violated its own party constitution.

The writer is Sabah’s deputy Umno chief and the state assembly speaker.