By Lim Kit Siang

RoS DG’s statement that DAP members should not  “harbor false hopes” of forming new party if DAP is deregistered now makes sense as it is proof that he had been on acting the script of Umno/BN DDD squad to demolish and destroy DAP

Now the pieces are falling into place, and  the totally unwarranted statement by the Registrar of Societies (RoS) Director-General Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman in the Star of 26^th July telling DAP members not to  harbor “false hopes” of forming a new party if the DAP is de-registered by the RoS is making sense.

DAP leaders and members had been  mystified by Abdul Rahman’s end-of-July statement “out of the blue”, for 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 could be no plausible ground for the deregistration of the DAP.

Three allegations had been cited by the highly-funded  Umno/BN “DDD” (Demolish/Destroy DAP) campaign in the first seven months of the year to question the validity of the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections at the DAP Congress in Penang last December, but none of them had been able to withstand scrutiny despite the mysterious last-minute  publication of a  scurrilous and defamatory booklet packing some 100 lies and falsehoods against the DAP  in 12 pages.

Although this booklet of lies is by a phantom “Father Augustus Chen”, it is distributed nationally  in four languages, Bahasa Malaysia, English, Chinese and Tamil, and given widest publicity in the Umno-BN controlled media, whether print, radio and television, despite being an illegal publication without identifying the printer and publisher!

The first allegation of electoral fraud and manipulation in the DAP CEC elections was virtually abandoned after the first two months because there can be no real dispute that there was a genuine computer glitch which had nothing to do with any mistake in vote counting or tabulation, but only in the computer posting of the results for the purpose of  announcement – something which we could prove to anyone at any time.

The other two allegations of “753 delegates mostly Indians” not notified of the Congress and unable to take part in the CEC elections and the “547 phantom delegates mostly from Penang” were just  baseless and downright lies – which is why the RoS DG is not prepared to put in writing the reasons why he is not satisfied with the DAP CEC elections and wants a re-election to be held.

For seven months, the well-oiled and highly-funded Umno/BN DDD “Demolish/Destroy DAP” campaign had churned out lies and falsehoods through several hundreds of reports in Umno/BN controlled media about the DAP, for instance, that “the only way DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng could get rid of party members who are not his supporters, especially the Indians, would be through deregistration of the party”.

According to this scenario, “there was talk within the party that Guan Eng would prefer to have the party deregistered rather than hold a fresh party election”.

There was even the outrageous allegation and lie  that the DAP leadership was trying to bribe the RoS to deregister the DAP!

All this mountain of lies and falsehoods were grist to the mill of the wicked and devilish Umno/BN Demolish/Destroy DAP campaign, but they highlighted one deplorable and distressing fact – that the RoS Director-General was dancing to the tune of the Umno/BN Demolish/Destroy DAP campaign instead of acting independently, impartially and professionally as a RoS Director-General.

This was illustrated by his unwarranted outburst on July 26 telling DAP members not to “harbour false hopes” of forming a new party if DAP is deregistered, when there was no such notion or intention in the party though it fitted the lies and falsehoods of the Umno/BN DDD campaign that the DAP leadership want the DAP deregistered so as to set up a new DAP like UMNO Baru, where Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad took the opportunity to get rid of UMNO members who disagreed with him when old Umno was declared illegal by the court (and not by the RoS) in 1988.

To reinforce his statement that DAP members should not “harbour false hopes” to set up a new DAP, Abdul Rahman even said:

“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.”

Although Abdul Rahman officially handed over RoS certificates to 20 new political parties on Monday, September 2, (11 from Sabah, five from Sarawak and four from the peninsula), it is clear that the decision to approve the registration of the 20 new political parties was taken very much earlier, even before his “out-the-blue” “do not harbour false hopes” statement to DAP members on July 26.

The question is whether the RoS DG is continuing to dance to the tune and act on the script of the Umno/BN DDD squad and be a tool of the Demolish/Destroy DAP campaign?