ROS and our prime ministers

When Umno was declared illegal by the High Court ruling of justice Harun Hashim on Feb 4, 1988, two former prime ministers - Tengku Abdul Rahman, our father of independence and Tun Hussein Onn, our third Prime Minister - tried to register a party called Umno Malaysia.

The Registrar of Society (ROS) which is under the home minister then rejected Umno Malaysia but allowed another party applied by the sitting prime minister on Feb 13, 1988, called Umno Baru to be registered. Yes, Dr Mahathir Mohamad was both prime minister and the home minister then, and ROS was under his ministry.

Then on July 28, 2017, Pakatan Harapan applied to the ROS to be registered. ROS kept delaying it. Now yet again, the now-former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad called this delay some form of sabotage.

In response then home minister Zahid Hamidi said that even though the ROS was under his ministry, he had no hand in the decision to accept or reject Harapan's application and gave an assurance that ROS will act professionally in the issue. Then on April 5, 2018, just before the 14th General Election (GE14), the ROS temporarily dissolved even Bersatu. So Harapan was not registered, Bersatu dissolved and all of them stood under PKR logo in GE14.

Then May 9, 2018, Harapan won the election and suddenly magic happened. Just a week after that, on May 16, approved both Harapan and Bersatu's registration. This was announced by Mahathir, who was prime minister.

Now once again our ROS, on May 5 this year, says that Mahathir is no longer the chairman of Bersatu. Instead, they say Muhyiddin Yassin, the sitting prime minister, is the acting chairperson of Bersatu. And the Former Prime Minister is challenging this.

Why don’t former prime ministers understand the role of the ROS and save us from this continuous drama? So whose instruction will the so-called independent and professional ROS take? The sitting prime minister or the former prime minister?

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S ARUTCHELVAN is PSM deputy chairperson. - Mkini