Election Commission (EC) deputy chairperson Wan Ahmad Wan Omar was off the mark when he insisted that Pakatan Rakyat should register with the Registrar of Societies (ROS) as a political entity.

According to several opposition politicians, the application has been with the ROS since November 2009.

"We applied to the ROS when Zaid Ibrahim (now Parti Kita president) was in charge," said PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub when met in the Parliament lobby today.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng confirmed this: “We have already formally applied.”

pkr congress pc 271110 saifuddin nasution PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution (left) said he believes the EC may be unclear on the issue.

"I believe what the EC deputy chairperson meant was for us to register with the EC under one logo, for use during elections,” he explained.

"However, before we can register our logo, we have to be registered as a political entity, which was done when Zaid was in charge."

Saifuddin then took issue with the way the ROS operates, pointing out that the Pakatan application is still being processed when approval of Parti Kita’s application was seemingly fast-tracked.

"We have not heard anything about our application except for a request to include the word 'Malaysia', to become 'Pakatan Rakyat Malaysia', to reflect the national agenda," he said.

machap by election nomination 030407 wan ahmad The politicians were commenting on Wan Ahmad’s call (right) to Pakatan to register as a political coalition to avoid breaking the law in future election exercises.

He said the opposition front has consistently broken the rules under the Election Offences Act over the span of 16 by-elections, simply because they are viewed as three separate parties and not a single political entity.

"They have already agreed to pakat (work together), so what's wrong with simply registering (as a coalition) so they can be like BN?" he had said in Kerdau yesterday.

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