Four years ago, on 17th April 2013, the RoS wrote to DAP about certain irregularities in their 15th December 2012 Congress and party election. DAP, however, did nothing and Karpal actually threatened to sue the RoS if they do not approve DAP’s party election and office bearers. The RoS has suspiciously dragged its feet on this matter and it appears like nothing is going to happen. The impression being created is that DAP has one way or another compromised the RoS.
DAP: THE INSIDE STORY
Raja Petra Kamarudin
On 17th April 2013, the Registrar of Societies (RoS) sent DAP a letter (SEE BELOW) pointing out a few issues that require clarification. This letter was in response to the many complaints the RoS received from DAP members alleging a number of irregularities.
The first issue was in relation to the office bearers that the CEC appointed on the night of December 2012. At 8.30pm of that night, as soon as the names of the 20 winners were announced (and announced more than three hours late, mind you), the 20 CEC members met to appoint the party’s office bearers.
Within those 20 was Vincent Wu Him Ven — who was later dropped and replaced with Zairil Khir Johari. Hence Vincent Wu was not supposed to be in that CEC meeting and since he was then whatever decisions the CEC made would not be valid
The 2012 DAP CEC were voted in with rigged votes and electoral fraud
According to DAP, there was an error in the vote calculation and it should have been Zairil instead of Vincent who had won. Vincent, however, won 6th place while Zairil won 21st place. So that argument sounds a bit far-fetched. Anyway, since Vincent was dropped and replaced with Zairil after the CEC meeting, that would mean the CEC meeting is invalid and they should have reconvened the CEC meeting after ‘discovering’ the ‘error’.
However, they did not. Instead of reconvening the meeting and ratifying what the earlier CEC meeting had decided, they continued with the decision by the invalid CEC meeting hence making whatever decisions thereafter being invalid as well.
The point is the office bearers were appointed by an invalid CEC. Hence the office bearers are also invalid. The appointment of all the office bearers (such as the national chairperson, the secretary-general, the national treasurer, the national organising secretary, the national publicity secretary, the international secretary, up to five national vice-chairpersons, and various deputy positions) done by an invalid CEC would be rendered invalid as well.
Party national treasurer Fong Kui Lun, deputy chairman Tan Kok Wai, chairman Karpal Singh, secretary-general Lim Guan Eng and advisor Lim Kit Siang, at the meeting that decided to reject the RoS directive for fresh party elections to be held and instead threatened to sue
READ MORE HERE: DAP rejects RoS directive for fresh party polls
That was the first point raised by the RoS. DAP should have held another CEC meeting to reappoint all the office bearers but they did not. Hence the office bearers are illegal and all decisions they make thereafter are also invalid.
The second matter raised by the RoS is regarding the notice that DAP was supposed to send out to the branches ten weeks in advance according to Article VIII, item 6 of the DAP’s Constitution. Furthermore, 753 delegates eligible to attend the Congress did not receive their notices and without these letters the 753 were barred from attending the Congress and barred from voting as well.
DAP was then given a month to clarify this matter and respond to the allegations, which they did not.
DAP delayed the announcement of the 20 CEC winners for more than three hours because they needed to make some ‘adjustments’. They had to make sure that the top six winners were Lim Kit Siang, Lim Guan Eng, Karpal Singh, Chong Chieng Jen, Anthony Loke Siew Fook and Vincent Wu Him Yen — while Teng Chang Khim, Nga Kor Ming, Chow Kon Yeow, Boo Cheng Hau and Ngeh Koo Ham were supposed to all be in the bottom ten. On top of that, Tan Seng Giaw had to be excluded from the list of 20 winners, which means he must lose.
Tan Seng Giaw would have won top slot so they needed to kill him off
How and why it was done is explained in these previous articles:
After the 20 CEC winners were announced, PAS pointed out that not a single of the Malay candidates who contested had won. So how could DAP call itself a multiracial party? Basically DAP is a Chinese-dominated party. Even Tok Guru Nik Aziz Nik Mat found it difficult to defend DAP under these circumstances and he conveyed this to Karpal.
Kit Siang, Karpal, Guan Eng, Anthony Loke and Vincent Wu then held a meeting and decided that DAP needs at least one ‘Malay face’ in the 20-member CEC. And this Malay face will be Zairil Khir Johari even if he does not have one drop of Malay blood running through his veins. But that means one person needs to be dropped to make way for Zairil. And it was decided that that person to be dropped and replaced with Zairil would be Vincent Wu.
They needed a Malay face so they switched Vincent Wu with Zairil and blamed it on Excel
So now they had to do damage control to explain why Vincent Wu has to be dropped and why Zairil who did not win is now in at number 20 (and got in with just a one vote majority on top of that). Karpal then explained it as a computer glitch and blamed in on a flaw in the Excel spreadsheet. And that was why DAP made the mistake of announcing Vincent Wu instead of Zairil as one of the 20 winners.
Karpal, however, knew that it was not a computer glitch but vote rigging. But he could not say this without exposing DAP to the risk of getting deregistered. The simple explanation would be to say ‘computer error’ and that it was an ‘honest mistake’. Karpal also used ‘the best defence is to attack’ strategy by threatening to sue if the RoS does not approve DAP’s Congress and office bearers.
Nevertheless, vote rigging or honest mistake is one thing. What they should have done after that was to convene another CEC meeting with the new CEC composition (minus Vincent Wu and now including Zairil). But they did not. And this is where DAP walked right into their own trap. Any decision made by the first CEC is invalid because the fruit from a poisonous tree is poisonous.
Why Karpal did not advice DAP to hold another CEC meeting is a mystery until today. Was it pure arrogance or stupidity? Since Karpal is no longer around this will never be known. But that is what tripped up DAP big time and now their future hangs in a balance.
Karpal explained the irregularity as ‘computer error’ in the hope it would look like an ‘honest mistake’
Because of this, any decision the CEC makes thereafter becomes invalid. Approving new branches. Approving new members. Sacking of members. Issuing of surat watikah. Anything that involves the power, approval or signature of the office bearers (such as the secretary general) becomes tak sah.
In short, any and all members sacked from the party since 15th December 2012 are technically still members of DAP and any members or branches approved and/or upgraded since 15th December 2012 are invalid. That is the long and short of it.
Tan Seng Giaw, in fact, tried to explain to Kit Siang that when you ‘reshuffle’ the CEC members you need to hold a new CEC meeting to reappoint the office bearers, especially since the composition has changed. Kit Siang, however, brushed him off. Tan Seng Giaw knew that this was going to be a problem and, true enough, it did become a problem.
So now DAP is stuck. The window to rectify this transgression has closed. All DAP can do now is to act as if no crime has been committed and hope that the RoS will just drop the issue and take it no further. The power to act is in the hands of the RoS and there is no statute. The RoS can always act whenever they have enough reason to act and DAP would no longer exist. On the other hand, DAP can grease the palms of certain RoS people and get them to close the file.
Is that why the RoS has so far not acted even though their letter to DAP is almost four years old? There can be no other explanation because the RoS is known to be very efficient and uncompromising. In DAP’s case, however, the RoS seems to be reluctant to act. If not why would the RoS tidur for four years and allow DAP to get away with murder?
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