Pakatan Harapan (PH) plans to initiate legal proceedings against the Registrar of Societies (RoS) for remaining silent over the status of the coalition’s official application submitted on July 24 last year.
The opposition pact’s chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that the coalition would be filing the papers by Thursday. He was speaking at a press conference at the PPBM office today.
“We still have not received any response from RoS. When we ask them, they do not answer at all.
“So we cannot say they have rejected (our application) because they have not done so. On the other hand, we can’t say anything because we still do not have proof,” Mahathir said.
The four-party coalition, made up of PKR, DAP, PPBM and Amanah, intends to contest the next general election under a common logo.
Mahathir said legal proceedings would be initiated to get the RoS to reply to the party’s many requests and queries on PH’s application.
“We want court action to be taken almost immediately because we feel RoS is failing in its duty and to fulfil its role as a government agency.
“It’s very bad for us as we cannot make preparations for the election. Intentionally or not, by not replying to our application, RoS is actually helping Barisan Nasional to win the election. It’s wrong for a government department to be one-sided in carrying out its duties,” the PH chairman said.
The RoS had earlier claimed that it was not dragging its feet over the pact’s application but said the application was held up by unresolved issues involving the DAP and PPBM.
RoS had stated PPBM’s failure to hold its first annual general meeting, as well as DAP’s problem over its central executive committee (CEC), as reasons for the delay.
PPBM has since held its annual general assembly, while RoS has also recognised DAP’s top leadership line-up.
Mahathir also questioned the latest list of early voters, saying there has been a huge increase in the number of postal voters.
“If this list is introduced, we find that many of them will probably vote BN. We know in GE13 there were more than 400,000 registered as early voters. This had a huge negative impact towards the opposition. Now the list is almost 1,000,000 voters,” he said.