Serdang – The Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting held yesterday (Saturday 16 December 2017) at Malaysian Agro Exhibition Park Serdang (MAEPS) unanimously decided to hold an Extra-ordinary General Meeting (EGM) soon to formally readmit MIC branches still outside the party, MIC sources said.
The EGM will also approve some changes to the MIC Constitution to legally reinstate these branches and to give its members equal rights to participate at the forthcoming party elections expected to be held in 2018, after the 14th general election.
The CWC meeting was held at about 1.30 pm on Saturday during the lunch break of “MIC retreat” for GE-14 which was attended by about 1000 delegates from the MIC divisions to discuss and outline the strategies and election machinery for GE-14.
The EGM to be held soon is expected to amend some existing provisions and add new provisions in the MIC Constitution to give full legal rights to the MIC branches and members still outside the party.
On the 23rd of September this year at the MIC General Assembly sweeping changes to the MIC Constitution were approved. The amendments provide for election at all levels and also empowered the MIC branch office-bearers as electoral voters for key positions in the party. The amendments have been since forwarded to the Registrar of Societies (RoS) for approval.
One of the salient features of the newly amended MIC Constitution makes it mandatory for a member to have a continued membership of 10 years in the party to be eligible to contest for President, Deputy President, Vice President, CWC and State Chairman. Since hundreds of branches had remained outside the party for few years during the MIC leadership crisis, members of these branches may face legal issues on continuity of membership in the event they wish to contest for party posts even though they are formally reinstated into their party membership.
Therefore, MIC sources said some members of CWC felt there was a need to formally amend some provisions of the MIC Constitution to give full legal rights and continuity of membership to these re-admitted branches so that there will not be any legal issues or complaints to the RoS later.
No date has been fixed yet for the MIC EGM.
