DAP leaders train their guns on RoS at special congress

PETALING JAYA, Sept 29 — The Registrar of Societies (RoS) was the foremost target of DAP leaders at its special congress today, held after the the regulatory body compelled the opposition party to carry out fresh polls for its central leadership.

National chairman Karpal Singh and secretary-general Lim Guan Eng dedicated time in their opening speeches to blast the RoS for what they decribed as conspiring with the Barisan Nasional (BN) federal government to de-register the party, and cited the high-turnout of delegates at the congress as a powerful signal of protest against the “dirty tactic”.

“RoS had tried to exploit the honest mistake of the DAP by first rejecting the CEC elected and subsequently ordered a re-election,” Lim said, referring to his party’s central executive committee by its initials.

“The DAP will not let this dirty tactic, desperate and destructive by BN to destroy DAP,” he added.

Some 85 per cent of its 2,576 delegates who qualify to vote had turned up for the special congress, held at the One World Hotel here.

“The gigantic turnout demonstrates the strength of the DAP... it sends a signal to the RoS that we will not be cowed,” Karpal said. Since December last year, the DAP has been battling hard to contain the negative press following its admission that it had botched up its CEC polls results through an “honest” tabulation error.

On January 4, Lim, who is also Penang chief minister, 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 RoS subsequently ordered fresh polls, after saying it was not satisfied with the party’s explanations and prompting an uproar from DAP leaders who accused the societies regulator of conspiring with the government to bury their party.

Lim cited the RoS bid to stop today's polls through by filing for an injunction, despite having ordered the re-election themselves, as the clearest proof of a concerted plot to kill off the DAP.

"From forcing the DAP to follow the RoS order, they now turned around by trying to stop the DAP from holding a re-election. Holding fresh polls is wrong, not doing it is wrong," said the Penang chief minister.

And despite the party having agreed to meet the RoS directive, the DAP secretary-general pointed out that the party continued to be subject to libel and lies from its political rivals.

Lim added that today's special congress would preempt any excuse to take "crueller" action.

"We cannot give the RoS any excuse or reason to take crueller and heavier action that is the de-registration of the party. The party cannot afford to be de-registered," he said, further noting that the DAP is now the leading party in the three-party Pakatan Rakyat opposition pact, having won the lion's share of the 89 federal seats bagged by the bloc in the May 5 general election.

Karpal warned that any attempt by the RoS to harm his party would resort in strong legal action in what he said is a "last warning" against the regulating body.

"I have been watching the RoS since December last year and have been paying attention to what he has been saying," he said, referring to the statements made by RoS director-general Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman.

"And I am not going to let him go if he says something that is detrimental to the DAP. Jangan main-main sama Rocket (don't play-play with the Rocket)," he said to a thunderous applause, referring to the party's logo.

Karpal then noted that the positive turnout in today's congress showed the party could weather what is deemed as the DAP's worst ever crisis.

An estimated 2,000 out of 2,576 delegates from 985 branches will cast their votes to elect the 20 CEC members today.

Lim had previously announced that an international auditing firm was appointed by the party to monitor the counting process to prevent a repeat of wrong tabulation of votes.