Dr M loses hope in battle for Pejuang

(FMT) – Pejuang pro-tem chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad has given up hope of having his party registered with the Registrar of Societies (RoS) under the current state of emergency.

In a blog post, an upset Mahathir accused Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin of denying Pejuang’s registration, and doing exactly what former prime minister Najib Razak did to Muhyiddin’s PPBM in 2018.

Then, PPBM’s registration was rejected a day before the 14th general election.

“The prime minister, who at that time was the president of PPBM, was very angry. He thought it was unfair and a dirty trick by Najib’s government.

“Now that he is the government with emergency powers, he is doing the same thing that he condemned Najib for,” said the Langkawi MP.

Mahathir also questioned the reason given for the rejection of his party’s application, claiming the government was either too preoccupied with the pandemic or that Putrajaya was “ensuring elections without opponents”.

He added that under the emergency, Muhyiddin’s decisions could not be challenged in court and that there was “no more democracy”.

“So I suppose Pejuang cannot do anything to get the Registrar to register the party,” said Mahathir, expressing his helplessness in the matter.

Following its rejection earlier this month, Pejuang had announced that it would file an appeal against RoS’ decision to the home minister, under Section 7 of the Societies Act.