PETALING JAYA (Aug 11): Keeping up the pressure on DAP’s opponents, its Parliamentary Leader Lim Kit Siang has warned that the party will file “mega defamation suits” against those who have spread the claim by a so-called Father Augustus Chen that there was fraud in the DAP central executive committee election last year.

On Day Five of a seven-day ultimatum that Lim has given to “Father Augustus Chen” to surface and prove that he is not a phantom, Lim said in a statement that there are no indications that Chen could appear, “as there is simply no such person not just in Malaysia but on this earth.”

Chen is the supposed author of a 16-page booklet The Equity Report (CEC Election Fraud) which describes the alleged fraud in the DAP CEC election. Calling the booklet “scurrilous and utterly false”, Lim said that it was an unlawful publication as it shows neither the printer nor publisher as required by law.

“It is just impossible and unthinkable that there could be a genuine person who could allow his name to be used for such a scurrilous publication but is afraid to step forward to identify himself!

“Whoever steps forward to claim authorship of the scurrilous publication The Equity Report must not only be prepared to face multiple mega-defamation suits but criminal proceedings as well for the mountain of malicious lies in the booklet,” Lim said.

Lim also stressed that if Chen did not surface, then the “Umno/BN media which had maliciously used the booklet as if its lies and falsehoods were gospel truth so as to continue to mount defamatory attacks against DAP and its leaders should expect mega defamation suits to be instituted against them”.

However, he felt that the more pertinent question was why the RoS director-general had acted against the DAP in invalidating the DAP CEC elections and directed CEC re-elections to be held “solely on the lies and falsehoods in the booklet”.

Lim stated that it is for this reason that the DAP has asked for reasons for the decision of the RoS director-general, who should not act arbitrarily but explain why he is not satisfied with the DAP’s clarifications on the CEC elections.

“The DAP has nothing to hide and is even prepared to have a public inquiry to rebut all lies and false allegations which had been concocted by the Umno-BN’s effort to ‘demonise/destroy DAP’ (DDD) propagandists and cyber troopers on the CEC elections.”

He pointed out that for the past week, the party’s opponents, who allegedly reached up to Cabinet level had used the “fictitious” Father Augustus Chen as authority for two false allegations to justify the RoS action against the DAP, viz:

That “753 DAP delegates (mostly Indians)” who were eligible to vote in the DAP’s CEC elections were not given notice to attend and vote at the DAP Congress; and
That there were “547 phantom delegates (mostly from Penang)” who voted at the DAP Congress last December, rendering the elections invalid.

Lim said that the allegation of 547 “phantom delegates” was a new concoction after the May 5 general election and was never raised by the RoS with the DAP in the past six months, while the allegation of the 753 DAP delegates - who were absent at the Congress or some 29% of the total number of entitled delegates - who had not been notified to attend and vote was equally baseless.

Furthermore, the Indian delegates who were absent were about 100 and not “753 DAP delegates (mostly Indians)” as alleged, he added.

“DAP is prepared to have a public inquiry to debunk all the lies and falsehoods concocted by the Umno/BN ‘DDD’ squad, but is the RoS prepared to have such a public inquiry to establish the real truth?” asked Lim.

Lim also said that not a single complaint about the CEC elections last December had been received by the party leadership in the past six months.

“Why didn’t the RoS ask those in the party who were genuinely aggrieved about the holding of the DAP CEC elections last December to complain and use the internal party channels first, before lodging reports with the RoS if not satisfied with outcome of complaints inside the party?” he questioned.

In early August, the RoS issued a letter to the DAP that it did not accept the party’s clarification on the CEC election, and directed the party to hold a re-election. However, the party had sent a letter to the RoS to ask for an explanation on why the RoS did not accept the clarification and which law gave it the power to issue such a directive.

DAP had announced that there had been an error in the election result and attributed it to a technical error due to tabulation. In the amended result, Zairil Khir Johari was announced as the last elected CEC member.