KUALA LUMPUR, AUG 21- DAP said today that it will not file a legal suit against the Registrar of Societies (ROS) for forcing the party to relect its central executive committee members (CEC)
However, the party will file legal action against two Utusan Malaysia reports, which the DAP deemed as defamatory.
The party feared that the filling of a legal suit against the ROS would lead to the registrar retaliating by de-registering the DAP.
However, Gobind insisted that the DAP has strong evidence that the ROS has no power under the Societies Act 1966 to order them to convene a fresh party polls.
“Unless the prime minister or the Home Ministry is prepared to give us an assurance that such thing would not happen, then we will immediately sue ROS,” he said.
DAP chairman Karpal Singh announced on Thursday that the party would comply with the ROS directive despite protest for the larger interest of the party to avoid de-registration.
ROS has slapped DAP with a directive to hold fresh polls on July 31, saying that it is dissatisfied with the party’s explanation on the counting error during the party polls in December.
The decision drew strong criticism from the opposition party, which cried foul over the lack of legal justifications behind the directive and said it is akin to political victimisation.
Meanwhile, Gobind said DAP would issue two letters to Utusan demanding that they retract the statement in its articles titled “The charade has finally stopped” (Akhirnya ‘drama’ dihentikan) and “Kit Siang manipulate CEC polls?” (Kit Siang manipulasi pemilihan CEC?) and to apologise to DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang and its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.
The Puchong MP is giving Utusan 40 hours to do so failing which, they would embark on a suit against the publisher Utusan Publications and Distributors Sdn Bhd and writers Zulkifli Jalil and Kasthuri Jeevendran.
In the first article dated Aug 17, Guan Eng was claimed to have succumbed to ROS’ order due to the strong allegations of manipulation and fraud in the previous polls.
“Among the allegations were that DAP has failed to notify 753 delegates about the CEC polls and that, there were 547 ‘illegal’ delegates which most of them came from Penang,” said the report.
The allegations were found in the “The Equity Report (CEC election fraud)” booklet authored by a shadowy Father Augustus Chen, which surfaced in the last two weeks.
In the second article a day later, Utusan quoted Father Augustus Chen as saying that he is a personal friend of Kit Siang and that, he has seen the DAP leader manipulating party polls several times.
Gobind said the Umno-owned Utusan has showed no interest in verifying the identity of the author and the allegations before re-producing it.
“These are the most serious allegations in nature as there is no basis,” Gobind said.
On a separate matter, Gobind said the CEC term of 2008-2011 would discuss the conduct of the fresh polls tomorrow including the possibility of expelled member Jenice Lee to attend it as she was on the previous delegate lists.
