KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 15 — The DAP is giving up its fight against the Registrar of Societies (RoS) and will conduct fresh elections for its central executive committee (CEC) as directed.

In a statement to the media today, party chairman Karpal Singh (picture) said the CEC agreed yesterday to hold new polls to avoid possible deregistration.

“Despite the strong legal position of the DAP that the directive of the Registrar of Societies that the party holds fresh CEC elections in that that directive does not have the sanctity or authority of law, in the larger interests of the party, and to avert deregistration of the party, the CEC resolved last night to hold fresh CEC elections,” Karpal said in the statement.

The party had up until yesterday contested the instructions from the RoS for it to conduct the new elections following a tabulation error in the party polls held last year.

It argued that the registrar had failed to justify its demands beyond saying it was “dissatisfied” with the party’s explanation that the error had stemmed from software glitch, saying the RoS did not cite the legal provisions under which the order was issued.

The party instead offered to conduct a public inquiry together with the RoS to determine the flaws, if any, in its December polls that had led to the instruction.

The RoS, however, stuck to its guns and insisted that the DAP repeat the voting process.

“The DAP had made every effort to receive from the Registrar of Societies the reasons for his directive and the law upon which that directive had been based,” Karpal said.

He pointed out that DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng had tried to meet with RoS director-general Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman to no avail, while the registrar has also not entertained the party’s repeated requests for information pertaining to the complaints that led to the order.

“Under the circumstances, it is with regret, that as directed by the Registrar of Societies, the CEC of term 2008-2011 will meet up next Thursday to make the necessary preparations for the fresh CEC elections,” the Bukit Gelugor MP added.

On January 4, Lim revealed that an internal audit showed errors in the tabulation of votes from the December 15, 2012 party elections that 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 unable to use its logo in the Election 2013.

But DAP candidates then went on to contest in the national polls using its logo, after the RoS confirmed the validity of the party CEC’s appointment letters to candidates.