Unregistered PR, who to blame?

KUALA LUMPUR: It could be the weakness of the Registrar of Societies or simply the battle of political ego, but there is certainly no progress in Pakatan Rakyat’s attempt to register their loose political grouping.

Pakatan leaders continue to blame the RoS for the delay to register the coalition of Pas, PKR and Dap.

They have openly accused RoS chief Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman of being unfair and of practicing double standards.

PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail questioned why the application to register PR was delayed for more than two years since submission in 2009.

“ROS keeps delaying our registration. The last time we communicated with RoS was last year when they told us to put the word “Malaysia” in Pakatan Rakyat,” Saifuddin who is Member of Parliament for Machang said.

He said that was the only discussion between RoS and Pakatan, and the RoS had been silent on the matter until recently when they asked for a fresh application.

“They keep giving us the run around. We thought ROS will help us but unfortunately they did not even communicate with us, until the latest call” Saifuddin claimed.

RoS had recently urged the interested parties to submit a fresh application since the original applicant and Pakatan Rakyat’s pro-tem chairman Datuk Zaid Ibrahim was no longer a party in the application.

Zaid, a prominent lawyer, quit PKR in November 2010 following a fall-out during PKR party elections. He has since formed his own party-KITA.

RoS’ Abdul Rahman told The Mole that Pakatan must submit a fresh application to enable the authority to proceed with their duty.

“There is no malice or double standards about their application but how could we process when their application is still under the name of the president of another party?

How could we approve when the application to register Pakatan Rakyat is still associated with a person who is no longer with them,… how could I approve it?” Abdul Rahman questioned.

As the protem chairman then, Zaid was entrusted with formalising Pakatan Rakyat and to draw up the coalition common policies.

Zaid’s former pro-tem committee member and Pas vice president Salahuddin Ayub is however adamant that the RoS was unfair. 

“Now RoS says the registration could not be processed because the application was done by Zaid. Why wasn’t it processed immediately in 2009?” 

“Why were they silent for almost two years?” he queried.

Zaid, as reported in The New Straits Times was baffled as to why Pakatan Rakyat leaders were blaming RoS over the matter.

NST quoted him as saying “If they (leaders of DAP, Pas and PKR) are really serious about pushing for it, they can contact me, which they never once did since I left them."


But Saifuddin told The Mole that Pakatan Rakyat leaders were yet to decide whether they would submit a fresh application, or demand the ROS to process the existing application.

“The change of name by the former applicant (Zaid) to a new applicant should not be an issue. It would not take long just to change and process it back,” he argued.

Both Saifuddin and Salahuddin have constantly been criticising the RoS for the delay in registering Pakatan Rakyat as a legal political coalition.

Source: MOLE