DAP to contest next election under PAN

By MT Webmaster Last updated Nov 15, 2015

DAP has already spoken to Muhyiddin Yassin and the ex-Deputy Prime Minister has agreed to help resolve this problem when he becomes Prime Minister. So DAP is backing Muhyiddin in the effort to oust Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

In the last general election in 2013, the DAP candidates went to the nomination centre with two surat watikah — one signed by DAP and the other signed by PAS. The reason for this was because they were not sure whether the DAP surat watikah was valid since they were signed by a Secretary General who was not legally appointed.

You see, in December 2012, DAP’s party election was declared invalid due to the attendance of hundreds of illegal delegates-voters and in April 2013, one month before the general election, DAP was told to correct this discrepancy by holding its AGM and party election again, and this time properly.

The Registrar of Societies (RoS) decided to allow DAP some leeway and because of this the Election Commission (SPR) allowed DAP to contest the general election under its own party banner even though the surat watikah was signed by a Secretary General who was appointed by a CEC that should not be in office until DAP holds its party election again.

That was almost three years ago but since then DAP has done nothing. Hence the issue is: if its 2012 AGM and party election is invalid and since its CEC, therefore, is also invalid, and since the Secretary General appointed by the CEC would equally be invalid, can he still sign the surat watikah in the next election?

To avoid the possibility of the DAP candidates not being allowed to contest under their own party banner, they will be going to the nomination centre with two surat watikah — one under DAP and the other under PAN. If the election commission will not allow the DAP surat watikah to be used then they will use the PAN surat watikah instead.

The other problem is, some states might say yes and some might say no. So in some states the DAP candidates might be contesting as DAP candidates while in some states they might be contesting as PAN candidates.

This will create utter confusion if some DAP wakil rakyat are DAP wakil rakyat while some are PAN wakil rakyat. Hence, to avoid this confusion, unless the RoS and SPR can both declare beforehand that there are not going to be any issues, DAP candidates would all be contesting under PAN.

Yesterday, DAP said it is in the interest of the opposition that they allow Najib to stay until the next general election. However, in the interest of DAP, they need to help oust Najib so that Muhyiddin can take over, after which he will help solve DAP’s illegal status issue.

This is another reason DAP was so keen to break up PAS and create PAN. DAP needs another party to contest the next general election. They cannot use PKR because the Chinese in PKR just hate the Chinese in DAP, since way back.

DAP also cannot use PAS after saying so many bad things about the party. So they created a new party called PAN, which is neither PKR nor PAS, and now will use that party to contest the next general election like what they almost did with PAS in the last general election.

Using PAN to contest the next general election is supposed to be a backup plan in case DAP candidates cannot contest under their own party banner. However, as it stands now, using PAN is the first alternative as the status of DAP is far from resolved and which will never be resolved since DAP refuses to comply to the RoS instruction to hold its December 2012 party election again.

Hence Muhyiddin taking over as Prime Minister is very critical for DAP, and if that is not going to happen then PAN would instead be very critical to DAP, unless the RoS and SPR are both prepared to close both eyes like they did in the 2013 general election.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK