Guan Eng is the main beneficiary of RoS’s decision on DAP’s party polls
Eric See-To
DAP’s accusation that the ROS action to ask them to hold party elections is a form of sabotage and will cripple their GE14 preparation does not hold water.
One must remember that GE12 was held in March 2008 and the GE13 in May 2013 was almost reaching the absolute term limit.
DAP’s disputed party election with the “Excel error” was held in December 2012 – five months before the GE13 polling date in May 2013.
GE14 must be held before 24 August 2018.
Even if DAP holds their party elections as late as March 2018, it would be no different to when it held it’s party election in December 2012 – five months before GE13.
Also, DAP had long known about that the ROS had not recognised its September 2013 re-election.
The RoS already confirmed in December 2013, one year after the December 2012 party election, that the CEC is not recognised or ‘belum diiktiraf‘ and has no authority or ‘tidak mempunyai kuasa‘
In October 2015, Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had confirmed this in reply to a parliament question to DAP’s Loke Siew Fook who wanted to know the status of RoS probe into the party re-election.
“RoS is still probing the DAP election because the party still has not taken the measures as per RoS’s suggestions,” said Zahid then.
This is recorded in the Parliament Hansard for 2015 – hence DAP has no right to say that ROS is four years late in telling them that their party elections was not valid.
The biggest winner from the ROS decision to not recognise the December 2012 party election and the September 2013 re-election results is actually the DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng.
In the year 2003, DAP imposed a three terms limit of three years each on the post of Secretary General.
Lim Guan Eng was elected as Secretary-General in the DAP party elections in 2004 and in August 2008.
If either the 2012 or 2013 party election were recognised, Guan Eng would have now completed his third and final term by the end of last year 2016 – meaning that he can no longer be Secretary-General.
Kit Siang was DAP’s Secretary-General for 30 years and Guan Eng can now hold that post for 17 years instead of just nine as what is allowed
Since, the 2012 and 2013 election results are not recognised, if DAP holds their party elections now, then Guan Eng can start his third term and remain Secretary-General until the year 2020 – instead of having to retire his term last year.
A three-term limit of three years each would have meant nine years. Due to ROS’ decision and other delays, his tenure as Secretary-General would now extend to a minimum of 17 years
Thus Guan Eng would have go into the record books as the second longest serving Secretary-General at 17 years – just a little more than half of the longest serving Secretary-General of 30 years from 1969 to 1999 for his father Lim Kit Siang.
Additionally, holding party elections now is also a golden opportunity for Guan Eng to receive a fresh mandate if his party can accept a Secretary-General who has been charged with multiple counts of corruption – no different from his wish last year where he wanted to push for Penang state elections where he gave hte reason that he needed a fresh mandate after he was charged.
Among all the members of DAP, Guan Eng should have the least reason to complain about the ROS decision.
