Project Stability and Accountability for Malaysia (Projek Sama) urges all political parties – especially those that have been victimised under the current power structure of the Registrar of Societies (RoS) – to commit in their manifestos for the next general election to moving the power of party registration from the RoS to the Electoral Commission.
The commission, however, must first be made impartial and accountable to Parliament.
The RoS should be split into two – one for political parties and the other for societies – and both should be free from the executive’s control.
The power to register, suspend and deregister political parties should be transferred to the Electoral Commission, as is the case in many democracies. However, the commission must first be made impartial and subject to scrutiny by a parliamentary select committee, which must have the power to vet and recommend candidates for electoral commissioners.
Projek Sama takes note of Perikatan Nasional’s complaint over its deregistration. The RoS acted after PN member party Bersatu complained it had been denied the right to attend, speak and vote at a PN supreme council meeting on 16 July. It is PN’s right to challenge the RoS’ decision in court if it wishes.
Projek Sama sees a more important structural problem beyond any specific case: the home minister’s control of the RoS, which often results in the inconsistent application of the Societies Act 1966 and, hence, the weaponisation of the RoS to favour or penalise political parties based on their relationship with the federal government of the day.
The partisan control and weaponisation of the RoS stem from two features.
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First, the RoS is placed under the purview of the home minister.
Second, the home minister can exempt any party from any part of the Societies Act, thereby directly creating a ‘two-tiered’ (dua darjat) situation even when the RoS applies the law consistently.
The former enables political witch hunts or discrimination, while the latter enables favouritism.
The witch hunt or discrimination problem is evident in the cases of Umno and the socialist party PSM.
In 1988, when the original Umno was deregistered by court order, both ‘Team A’ (Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s faction) and ‘Team B’ (Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s faction) attempted to register a successor party: New Umno by Team A and Malaysia Umno by Team B.
In the end, Team A succeeded in registering New Umno, while Team B could only register Parti Semangat 46 (the Spirit of ’46), simply because the then home minister was Mahathir himself.
After Umno’s ouster in 2018, Umno alleged that Mahathir, as the new prime minister, had sought to deregister the party – an allegation he denied.
PSM applied to register in 1998 but obtained approval only 10 years later.
The favouritism problem is equally clear. In 2023, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail revealed he had exempted Umno from provisions of the Societies Act that could otherwise have led to Umno’s deregistration for preventing contests for its presidency and deputy presidency.
Such unfavourable and favourable treatment shows that party registration has been bent to serve the parties in power at the expense of fair multiparty competition.
This malaise did not begin under the ‘Madani’ (civil) government or Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution. It started under Umno and was not rectified even after Umno returned to the federal government following the ‘Sheraton Move’ in 2020.
Nor did the Malaysian Islamic party Pas, which cries foul today, want the home minister’s unchecked power removed.
The potential for opposition parties to be victimised through the home minister’s control of the RoS has persisted because all parties that were or are in the federal government – including Pas and Wawasan, whose members were previously in Bersatu – want to keep that control available for use against their opponents.
They harbour wishful thinking, like gamblers, that their fortunes will always be good and that they will always be in government.
PN’s complaint today underlines the need for an honest reckoning with the weaponisation of the RoS and a clear commitment to this urgent reform: transferring the RoS’s power over party registration to the Electoral Commission.
Complaining about the RoS only when one suffers, without committing to deal with the root cause of the problem, is hypocritical.
Talk is cheap. We call upon all political parties – especially those that have been victimised – to promise explicitly in their general election manifestos to undertake, push for or support such reform. – Projek Sama
The views expressed in Aliran's media statements and the NGO statements we have endorsed reflect Aliran's official stand. Views and opinions expressed in other pieces published here do not necessarily reflect Aliran's official position.
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