KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 13 — Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) needs to clean up its member registry before it can receive nominations and conduct internal polls, chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.

The 94-year-old said Bersatu had to postpone its polls from January 13 to January 26 as it needs to fix the registry and vet its members thoroughly.

"The registration of members faced a lot of difficulties. We find members [who hail from] one place but their registration is in another place. We have to correct that,” Dr Mahathir was quoted in The Star.

"Bankrupts cannot be candidates.

"We want those who are standing for the party polls to be those really with the spirit [of the party] — not opportunists [who want] to be division heads so that they will be candidates [in general elections] in the future. We do not want these people.

"According to the rules, former Umno members [without a one-year membership] cannot contest but we will give exception to those free of crimes... there will be special cases which we will consider,” he added.

Earlier today, Bersatu secretary-general Datuk Marzuki Yahya, said that Bersatu branches and divisions have now been directed to hold their annual general meetings between Feb 15 and April 18.