KUCHING: SUPP presidential aspirant Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh said yesterday that his team is not to be blamed if the Registrar of Societies (ROS) decides to take action against the party, including deregistering it.
He reiterated that secretary-general Datuk Sim Kheng Hui and the party’s central election committee must act on the complaints of irregularities in the branch and sub branch elections before the triennial delegates’ conference (TDC), which is scheduled to be held here from Dec 9-11.
Since some branches had lodged complaints to the ROS and also the police, Wong said he did not discount the possibility that the ROS might even decide to ask the party to postpone the TDC or have the party deregistered.
“The last thing we want is to see that our party gets deregistered. They (Sim and central election committee) have to rectify all these irregularities. The triennial delegates’ conference will come very soon, so the ROS will have to make some decision. We leave it to ROS, we won’t know (what actions to be taken),” he told reporters at his office at Bangunan Baitul Makmur (Masja) here yesterday.
Asked what if the ROS decided to deregister the party, he responded: “Cannot blame us.”
Members of the team led by Wong, who is also also Bawang Assan assemblyman, included state assemblymen Datuk Lee Kim Shin (Senadin), Datuk Francis Harden Hollis (Simanggang), Dr Jerip Susil (Bengoh), Ranum Mina (Opar) and Dr Johnical Rayong Ngipa (Engkilili)
Together with Lanang MP Datuk Tiong Thai King, Miri mayor Lawrence Lai and former SUPP Youth chief Alan Sim, the group went to meet ROS deputy director general Fison Yahaya and Deputy Home Minister Datuk Lee Chee Leong in Putrajaya on Thursday.
Wong, who is SUPP deputy secretary-general, asserted that their main purpose of meeting up with ROS was to seek advice and to clarify with them on the complaints lodged by the branches.
To another question, Wong denied suggestions that the group had met ROS with the view of setting up a new party. “Definitely no.”
When asked if his team wanted to have a meeting with Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, he laughed: “We do things one at a time”.
During the meeting with ROS, Wong said they were also told that ROS had recently sent out two letters to the party’s secretary-general. He, however, did not know the content of the letters.
“The ROS received at least eight complaints from party branches, including Pending Branch, Kuching Branch, Sarikei Branch, Kanowit Branch, Bintangor Branch and others.”
He also said that Central Working Committee had yet to convene meetings although it was clearly stated in the party’s constitution that the central election committee must bring up any suspected discrepancies to the CWC.
Meanwhile, Lee, who was also at the press conference, said this matter must be taken seriously.
“That’s why we (the team) are concerned. We hope with complaints made to ROS, actions can be taken. Otherwise, if we have our TDC with so many unhappy members, we are worried that untoward incidents may happen.”
Harden and Dr Jerip, who were also present, also expressed their concerns regarding the election irregularities, and they repeated their calls for a fair and transparent election.