Kuala Lumpur, 20 April – The Registrar of Societies (ROS) has no objections to DAP candidates using its own party symbol in the May 5 general election despite not recognising its party leadership.
DAP was informed of this late yesterday evening in a letter by ROS director-general Abdul Rahman Othman.
“The ROS so far has not made any decision to de-register DAP. The ROS also does not have any objection against DAP participating in the 13th general election with its own symbol,” wrote Abdul Rahman.
In an immediate reaction, DAP organising secretary Anthony Loke said the ROS appear to have succumb to public pressure and clarified the matter.
“It’s obvious that they issued that letter in face of overwhelming public pressure. Nevertheless, we will still stick to our plan,” he said.
The plan involved producing two authorisation letters – one from DAP’s secretary-general and another either from PAS or DAP – to the respective returning officers during the nomination process.
Nominations of candidates will be made today between 9am and 10am. The authorisation letters are for the use of respective party logos.
“We will use DAP’s appointment letter first, if it does not work, then use PAS or PKR’s letter,” Loke (right) told Malaysiakini.
The ROS had sent a letter on Thursday informing the DAP that the central executive committee (CEC) was not recognised, pending investigations into problems with the CEC election last year.
This sent DAP into panic mode, because authorisation letters for the use of the party logo is signed by the party’s secretary-general and might be considered invalid by the returning officer.
Thus, both PKR and PAS has issued authorisation letters to use their party logos to DAP candidates as a back-up.
However, there are concerns that even if the returning officers were to allow the use of DAP’s logo, the ROS’ notice on April 17 may be used to nullify election results later.
Feedback in one month
The latest letter by Abdul Rahman did not address whether the authorisation letters issued by the DAP secretary-general will not face legal problems.
In his letter last night, Abdul Rahman explained that the notice under Section 16 (1) of the Societies Act 1956 was issued to inform the party that there was a dispute over the DAP’s internal election on Dec 15 last year.
“The notice that was issued under Section 16(1) urged DAP to provide feedback in one month from the date of the notice on what has been done to resolve the dispute.
“In addition, only office bearers of the CEC elected on Dec 15, 2012 are not recognised by the ROS,” said Abdul Rahman.
-MALAYSIAKINI
