The yet-to-be-registered Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) may have to sacrifice its wish to be known as "Keadilan" in order to obtain the green light for registration from the Registrar of Societies (ROS).

PKR secretary general Abdul Rahman Othman told malaysiakini today that the party's transitional supreme council will meet soon to decide on the request from the ROS to replace the acronym with a different one.

"They want us to come up with another shorter name because they felt that the new entity cannot have the same acronym used by the old party. We have to discuss this seriously because the decision to adopt the name 'Keadilan' was made during an EGM," he said.

Although ROS has not given any deadline as to when they should reply to the request, Abdul Rahman said party leaders will meet within the week as they wish to settle the registration issue as soon as possible.

PKR - a merged entity of Keadilan and PRM - was launched on Aug 3 after the completion of a two-year merger process which involved obtaining their members' mandate and amending the Keadilan constitution.

The merged entity is now led by a 62-member transitional supreme council headed by Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as president with Dr Syed Husin Ali as deputy president.

Political decision

Meanwhile, its Youth chief Mohd Ezam Mohd Nor again took the Registrar of Societies (ROS) to task for finding fault over the acronym "Keadilan" saying that ROS has no basis to deny them the use of the name.

"This is clear double standard on the part of ROS and I suspect it to be a political decision. When Umno was ruled an illegal party and the new Umno had to be registered, why was it allowed to carry on using the old name. Why can't we do the same?" he said.

"In fact Umno's position then was worst than us. They had to register a totally new party. Whereas we are not a new entity, but only want to amend our (Keadilan) constitution."

As to whether the name should be defended by the merged party, Ezam said he personally believed that the name "Keadilan" should remain.

"I'll raise the issue at the political bureau committee meeting this evening and propose that we do not succumb to the ROS' demand and instead give our justifications to keep the name," he added.

Ezam had earlier rapped the ROS for its delay in processing PKR's application which was submitted 10 months ago.