WHEN DAP IS NOT BERSIH

Salleh Said Keruak

Deputy Umno Chief Sabah

The brouhaha regarding the so-called fraud in the May 2013 general election still rings in our ears. Barisan Nasional is not the legitimate government, they screamed. Barisan Nasional won the election through fraud, they alleged. There were blackouts all over the country during the counting of the votes and 40,000 Bangladeshi voters voted in many constituencies, they accused.

Then they filed a few election petitions in an attempt to get some of those seats declared null. Out of a total of 727 state and parliament seats, only about 60 election petitions were filed. That comes to less than 10%. And that would mean they have come to a conclusion that there was evidence of fraud in less than 10% of the seats.

What needs to be noted, though, is that in all those election petitions that were filed, there was not a single mention of blackouts during vote counting or incidences of Bangladeshi voters. Hence the Blackout 505 campaign was a farce mooted by the opposition to justify their defeat in the election.

Anwar Ibrahim promised that he would retire from politics and take up a new career in teaching if they failed to march into Putrajaya in May 2013. They did fail to march into Putrajaya but Anwar refused to retire as promised. In fact, he now wants to become the Menteri Besar of Selangor instead.

While all this drama was being played out, DAP held its party elections in December 2012 and many members plus some leaders lodged complaints with the Registrar of Societies (RoS) alleging fraud and manipulation in the course of that election.

At the behest of the RoS, DAP held fresh party elections in September 2013 and, yet again, there were allegations of fraud and manipulation. The RoS then instructed DAP to hold another re-election but DAP has stubbornly refused to do so. Instead, DAP is taking the RoS to court.

On 18th February 2014, the RoS sent DAP a letter asking for information regarding a few matters. This is in response to the letter from DAP dated 8th January 2014 where the information asked was not provided.

DAP refuses to admit that its party elections in December 2012 and the re-election in September 2013 had many discrepancies that have not been explained in spite of repeated requests from the RoS that they do so.

DAP is trying to portray itself as the victim in this tussle between the party and the RoS. The fact remains that DAP is not cooperative and refuses to comply to the rules or respond to the letters from the RoS.

And DAP has the gall to hurl allegations of fraudulent elections against the government when the party itself cannot even conduct proper party elections and resolve the legal problems it now faces regarding the discrepancies and violations in its own party elections.