DR Mahathir Mohamad’s lawyer has challenged the Registrar of Societies (RoS) to reveal the reason behind its approval of Umno’s application to postpone its party elections to 2019.

Haniff Khatri Abdulla said Umno is still obligated by the party’s constitution to hold its election by April 19 when a previous 18-month extension expires.

He added that no proper explanation was given as to why Umno was given an extra 12 months extension.

“I am challenging the RoS to reveal to the public the reasoning behind their statement, as it always has done with parties other than Umno,” Haniff said.

He said there were four questions that needed to be answered by RoS:

• When exactly did Umno apply for its party election to be extended from April 19, 2018 to April 19, 2019?
• What was the exact date that the RoS approved Umno’s application to extend its party election from April 19, 2018 to April 19, 2019.
• Exactly which provision or clause of Umno’s constitution was RoS referring to when it said the application to extend Umno’s party election was legal and valid?
• If the application to extend Umno’s party election was approved before RoS made its statement yesterday, why wasn’t any announcement made by Umno or RoS?

“If RoS does not answer the above four questions then it is evident that it is a public agency that has become a tool to be abused by Umno, just to save the government of Najib Razak,” he said.

Yesterday, RoS director Surayati Ibrahim said such a postponement was permitted in clause 10.17 of the ruling Malay party’s constitution.

She said Umno had fixed April 19, 2019 as the date for party elections.

Clause 10.17 allows a further extension of 18 months on top of the three years allowed in clause 9.3, making for a total time allowance of 56 months between the last party elections and the next.

The last party elections were held on October 19, 2013.

RoS said Umno had fixed April 19, 2019 as the date for party elections.

Haniff had previously said that RoS should compel all political parties to hold their meetings on time, as required by their constitutions.

He said that Umno would be declared illegal if RoS held the party to the same “rigorous” standards to which the opposition was held. – March 6, 2018.