PETALING JAYA, July 26 ― The DAP’s Lim Kit Siang (picture) today accused The Star, owned by political rival MCA, of concocting a crisis brewing within the opposition party owing to a looming threat of deregistration by the Registrar of Societies.

Earlier today, the newspaper reported that the DAP could face a permanent ban as the Registrar of Societies (RoS) has said it will reject the opposition party’s application to form a new party if it is deregistered.

RoS director-general Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman was quoted by The Star as saying that the party should not “harbour false hopes” of forming a new party since the body had shun applications to register new parties for the past five years.

“The notion of forming a new party if the DAP is deregistered had never been raised or entertained by anyone in the DAP, whether leadership or membership, as there is no plausible ground for the deregistration of the DAP,” Lim said in response to the report.

Instead, the DAP adviser said such a scenario was concocted to elicit the menacing response from the RoS.

“[When] such lies and falsehoods are accepted as if they are facts and truths as to warrant a comment by the RoS director-general, then the question of the independence, impartiality and professionalism of the RoS director-general immediately comes into question,” the Gelang Patah MP added.

On January 4, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng revealed that there were errors in the tabulation of votes from the December 15, 2012 party elections, which he said were caused by a technical glitch when the results were transferred to a computer using the Microsoft Excel programme.

The amendments resulted in Lim’s political secretary, Zairil Khir Johari, moving up from 39th position to 20th ― the last elected position in the party’s CEC.

Following complaints by some members, the RoS began investigations that at one point led to fears that the party would be deregistered ahead of Election 2013.

In today’s report by The Star, Abdul Rahman said: “It is better for the party members and leaders to take the initiative to save the party rather than harbour false hopes of setting up a new one.”

But Kit Siang told the head of the RoS to speak plainly on the matter, given that, according to Kit Siang, no request for fresh polls were made of the DAP following the CEC debacle.