PETALING JAYA, Dec 22 — Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) will press on with its first-ever annual general assembly (AGM) on December 30, after alleging lack of response from the Registrar of Societies (RoS).

PPBM deputy president Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir said his party believed the RoS should have no issues, citing the latter’s December 19 written reply stating only that PPBM must hold its AGM according to the party’s constitution.

“Therefore, with this feedback and also with the information given by the Registrar of Societies, we are of the opinion that the Registrar of Societies has no objections to the PPBM annual general meeting that will be held later, and it is in order and in line with the requirements of the Societies Act 1966 and the PPBM Constitution,” he said in a press conference today.

Announcing that the AGM will be held at the Ideal Convention Centre in Shah Alam, Mukhriz said PPBM’s permanent chairman and deputy chairman, supreme council members as well as eight delegates each from all 137 registered PPBM divisions nationwide are expected to attend.

He also expected 990 delegates from the 137 divisions to attend, while members from the remaining 28 divisions that have yet to be registered will be invited as observers.

Mukhriz said the AGM’s agenda will include the tabling of the annual financial statement covering the four-month period in 2016 for the party that was registered in September that year.

However, party elections will not be held as PPBM is only required by its party constitution to elect office holders triennially.

Both PPBM’s youth and women wing will not have their own AGMs as both were only registered this year, he said.

Chronology

Recounting the chronology of events leading to the AGM, Mukhriz said PPBM previously told the RoS that the party’s constitution required its division delegates to be selected from the party branches, and that it was still setting these up nationwide.

With no branches registered with RoS yet, PPBM had in a November 21 meeting with the agency sought the latter’s advice on how to hold a valid AGM, which Mukhriz said the agency did not provide.

He said PPBM was simply told to present its proposals for the party AGM, and that the RoS then agreed to a meeting involving PPBM’s lawyers, RoS officers and the Home Ministry’s legal adviser to discuss the suggestions.

Mukhriz said he then wrote to the RoS on November 23 with suggestions for the AGM, which was followed up by phone calls to the agency. He said a PPBM officer also visited the RoS almost daily to provide it updates and to fix an appointment with the Home Ministry’s legal adviser.

But Mukhriz said PPBM received no official response to the November 23 letter, noting that the RoS director-general had instead, on November 25, told the media that PPBM’s proposals contravened the Societies Act and the party’s constitution.

Mukhriz further said that the director-general had said the department would need a week to vet the PPBM proposals with a legal adviser and that the party may be deregistered if it failed to hold an AGM.

“However, there was no meeting arranged with the legal adviser, and there were also no official response issued by the Registrar of Societies after the one week period stated.

“Because time is running short for PPBM to hold an AGM this year, therefore on December 8, I had once again written a letter to the Registrar of Societies director-general to notify PPBM’s intention to hold the AGM before December 31,” he said.

When asked why PPBM must hold its AGM on December 30, Mukhriz said the RoS director-general appeared to have alluded on November 25 to the need for the party to have its AGM within this year.

“Going by our constitution, it says a meeting must be held once a year, so we assume that what she meant then was that within this year we must have the meeting. So we decided let’s not wait for the official reply, let’s just go ahead and arrange our AGM on December 30,” he said.

On November 16, RoS director-general Suriyati Ibrahim had said PPBM may not be allowed to contest in the 14th general election if it fails to hold its AGM as required under the party constitution, saying that the party should not give “excuses” about its internal party structure.

The 14th general election must be held by August 2018, but can be called any time before June.