DAP take RoS’ tardiness in party election issue to JPA

Two DAP assemblymen, Lau Weng San and Ng Sze Han file official complaint with public services department against RoS director-general Razin Abdullah.

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PUTRAJAYA: The rift between DAP and the Registrar of Societies (RoS) over the opposition party’s election issue continued with DAP lodging a complaint against the RoS’ director-general on the registrar taking too long to resolve the issue.

Two DAP Selangor assemblymen Lau Weng San (Kampung Tunku) and Ng Sze Han (Kinrara) today filed an official complaint with the public services department (JPA), claiming RoS director-general Mohammad Razin Abdullah had failed to adhere to the RoS client charter to solve any issue within 179 days.

“The complaint on re-election was first lodged on Sept 29, 2013 but until today, after 1,338 days and counting, RoS had yet to solve the complaint,” Lau said, adding that they hope JPA will initiate disciplinary proceedings against Razin.

Meanwhile, Ng pointed out that RoS has also not responded to their applications to form new branches and to amend DAP’s party constitution.

“Applications for new branches is supposed to take only five working days to process.

“But until now there is no response from them and this has resulted in over 220 branches not being formed,” he said.

Ng added the party had amended its constitution to have a 30% quota for female leaders in the central executive committee (CEC) but has yet to get RoS’ nod.

Lau, who is also Selangor DAP treasurer, repeated calls made by his party leaders that they are fine with conducting elections again but questioned if the fresh election can guarantee RoS will accept their CEC members.

“How many times do we have to hold party elections if RoS refuses to recognise our CEC members?

“It is not cheap to hold re-elections as we have to rent a place and provide meals for our members,” he said.

JPA’s representative Jaafar Jantan later accepted the complaint on behalf of his department.

Last Friday, Razin told the party to hold fresh elections for its 20 CEC members, as the registrar did not recognise the CEC members that were elected on Sept 29, 2013.

He added by conducting party elections again, the CEC members can hold the positions that are recognised by RoS.

However, party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said the party will not hold a fresh election, but will seek a meeting with the RoS.

He added DAP had already conducted a re-election in 2013 as previously directed by the RoS.

The dispute over DAP’s last party elections started more than four years ago, some three weeks before the 13th general election (GE13), which was held on May 5, 2013.

On April 17, 2013, the RoS had sent a letter to Lim, stating that it did not recognise DAP’s CEC which had been elected during the party elections the year before.

Former RoS director-general Abdul Rahman Othman said the non-recognition was due to the alleged dispute surrounding the party polls, and warned that DAP faced the risk of being de-registered.

However, the RoS issued another letter on April 19 stating that the party would be allowed to use its rocket symbol in GE13.

A re-election of the CEC was eventually carried out by DAP on Sept 29, 2013, but that too ran into problems, with the RoS still refusing to recognise the CEC.

On Jan 22, 2014, Lim filed a judicial review application on behalf of the party, saying the RoS had no power under the Societies Act 1966 to refuse the recognition of the CEC which was re-elected on Sept 29, 2013.

DAP decided to drop the application on Sept 23, 2014, following the RoS’ recognition of the re-elected CEC and its stand that statements on the matter were merely advice and not legally binding. -FMT