SUBANG JAYA, Aug 16 — The DAP’s decision to hold fresh elections for its central executive committee is a clear sign that the party had erred all along, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin (picture) said today.

The youth and sports minister accused the opposition party of deliberately prolonging the dispute with the Registrar of Societies (RoS) to gain public sympathy ahead of the recent 13th general election.

“Even if it was the correct decision, why did they prolong the issue? This issue cropped up even before the general election, so this shows that DAP only wanted to politicise it,” he said after launching the Malaysia Public Policy Competition here.

In a statement yesterday, DAP chairman Karpal Singh announced the party’s decision to accede to the Registrar of Societies’ (RoS) requirement that it holds fresh party polls due to complaints of alleged irregularities in the election late last year.

Up until then, the party had vigorously resisted the directive, saying the RoS had failed to justify its instructions to the party and to cite the laws under which the order was made.

It further alleged that the RoS directive was political persecution orchestrated by rival Umno.

DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua also alleged in a separate statement that the party was conducting the election under protest, saying the RoS could not be trusted to handle its case professionally and that the governing body would likely deregister the party if the case was raised in court.

Today, Khairy brushed aside the DAP’s reasons for caving in to the RoS demand, pointing out that the opposition party had put itself in the predicament.

“I don’t know why it took so long (to decide to hold fresh party polls). The DAP are admitting they are wrong... with the decision to hold fresh party elections, it is an admission of guilt,” he said.

On January 4, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng revealed that an internal audit showed errors in 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.

This resulted in the RoS investigating the party over the incident and subsequently ordering a new round of elections as it was “dissatisfied” with the DAP’s explanations.