KEPALA BATAS: Members of two DAP branches here lodged official complaints with the Registrar of Societies (RoS) over the lack of transparency at the party's central executive committee (CEC) re-election last Sunday.
The two are the Bagan Dalam and Ujung Batu branches in Penang.
Former DAP Bagan Luar branch chairman G. Asoghan, one of the members who attended last weekend's CEC's re-election, said he was not satisfied with the vote-counting process.
He said the ballot boxes were taken into a locked room where no delegates were allowed to witness the vote-counting process.
He added that to further compound matters, no representative from the candidates were also allowed to witness the vote-counting process.
"What kind of a transparency is DAP advocating? Who is to know what happens behind closed doors?
"We are very dissatisfied and we want the RoS to probe this matter thoroughly," he said after submitting their complaints to the senior assistant administrative officer Mohd Mazlan Hasshim at the state RoS office on Thursday.
Mazlan said he would refer the complaints to its headquarters.
Asoghan demanded an explanation from party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng as well as the party's legal advisor Gobind Singh Deo.
"Imagine if this happens during the 14th general election where both Lim and Gobind are defending their own Bagan and Puchong parliamentary seats. None of their agents are allowed in during the vote-counting process. Will Lim and Gobind agree to that? Will they just keep quiet then like they are doing now?
"DAP, which is propagating the competency, accountability and transparency (CAT) principles in the Penang government, should lead by example to prove that democracy is very much alive.
"There are so many lawyers contesting in the DAP CEC re-election. They should know the running of an election," he added.
Asoghan said DAP has been demanding for a clean and fair election, but when it comes to them, such is not the practice.
He also took issue with the blank ballot paper provided to all delegates.
"Nothing was written on the paper given to all delegates. They then needed to fill up all 20 spaces with the number of candidates they are rooting for from among 67 people.
"Just say if someone wrote a number 2 on the ballot paper...who is to know it will not be altered during the closed door vote-counting process? That is logically speaking.
Meanwhile, Asoghan also said that the DAP constitution clearly states that the secretary-general is only limited to three terms or nine years.
"Lim has been the secretary-general since 2004. Why is he not stepping down yet? This is a very serious matter," he added.
He noted that he has raised all these issues, including for vote-counting to be conducted before the delegates, even before the CEC re-election, but all that have fallen on deaf ears.
"I even sent it to the DAP headquarters but it looks like the party is not interested in listening to the grassroots. They have gone deaf," he stressed.
With 1,198 votes, Gobind lost only one vote to DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang, who again came out on top of the CEC list during the re-election on Nov 12.
The CEC members were voted in by 1,346 delegates.