-Lim Kit Siang, July 26, 2013

R.OS director-general’s groundless comment  clearest sign that UMN0/BN government may be preparing a Hari Raya surprise – deregistration of DAP on completely baseless and frivolous grounds.

The Star report today “Don’t harbour false hopes” quoting the ROS director-general Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman is the clearest sign that the UMNO/BN government may be preparing a Hari Raya surprise – the deregistration of DAP on completely baseless and frivolous grounds.

The Star report is studded with false and groundless premises showing that the ROS director-general is acting in a completely improper, unfair and unprofessional manner not in keeping with the efficient, impartial and independent discharge of his public duties.

How can the ROS director-general comment on a completely fictitious scenario which is a total concoction or figment of imagination of the Umno/BN propagandists, cybertroopers and their agents, as if it is a fact?

The Star report headlined “Don’t harbour false hopes” states:

‘Don’t harbour false hopes’

PETALING JAYA: DAP members have been told not to harbour hopes of forming a new party if the Registrar of Societies (ROS) decides to de-register it.

ROS director-general Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman said they would not likely entertain requests to set up a new party.

“They can apply. But the right to approve is with the ROS. We did not even entertain 29 applications to set up new parties submitted over the last five years,” he said yesterday.

He was asked to comment on the move by DAP members to look into establishing a new political party if de-registration was inevitable following complaints of election fraud in the DAP’s central executive committee (CEC) election in December.

The  notion of forming a new party if the DAP is deregistered had   never been raised or entertained by anyone in the DAP, whether leadership or membership, as there is no plausible ground for the deregistration of the DAP.

The fictitious scenario that there are DAP leaders or members who are preparing to establish a new political party allegedly “to purge political enemies” in the party is completely baseless, concocted by the UMNO/BN propagandists, cybertroopers and their agents to character-assassinate the DAP leadership.

But when such lies and falsehoods are accepted as if they are facts and truths as to warrant a comment by the ROS director-general, then the question of the independence, impartiality and professionalism of the ROS director-general immediately comes into question, raising the issue whether the ROS director-general was himself a party to the months of lies and falsehoods by Umno/BN propagandists, cybertroopers and their agents  falsely accusing the DAP of all sorts of improprieties in the party elections in the DAP national congress last December.

The ROS director-general made a cryptic remark in the Star report when he was asked “if the party should call for a fresh CEC election”, saying:

 “It is better for the party members and leaders to take the initiative to save the party rather than harbour false hopes of setting up a new one.”

Abdul Rahman should explain what he meant when referred to “the initiative to save the party” as up to now, the Party has not received any request in the past seven months for fresh CEC election. Only the Umno/BN propagandists, cybertroopers and their agents have been making noises in this regard in the past few  months.

With the approach of the Umno party elections at the end of the year, it is increasingly evident that the ROS decision on the DAP is not going to be a professional one, but a political one.

The ROS director-general and the UMNO/BN government should realise that the DAP will fight every inch of the way against any gross abuses of power affecting the future of DAP including the baseless and groundless deregistration of DAP.