DAP has accused Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia of front-paging "lies" in order to drive its owner's "agenda" of having the opposition party de-registered.

DAP national organising secretary Anthony Loke said Utusan 's front-page report alleging that the DAP was now holding branch-level elections to pre-empt any such action by the Registrar of Societies action has no merit.

NONE At a press conference today, Loke said this was because branch-level elections are an annual affair for the party and this year it was held back from April/May to June because of the 13th general election.

"How long will Utusan continue to lie? It's clear that it wants to create a negative perception with the motive of giving the ROS justification to deregister the DAP," he said.

Even if the ROS eventually finds that the DAP will need to hold a re-election for its central executive committee, the original delegates list from last December will be used.

Thus, he argued, there is no question of the branch level AGMs being held to pre-empt any CEC election.

" Utusan is also jumping the gun as ROS has not found any fault with the DAP as yet," Loke said.

‘Reveal your source’

He also challenged Utusan to reveal the source in the story, whom it cited as a DAP leader who wishes not to be named.

NONE Loke ( left in photo ) said the party is mulling legal action but hopes that if it does take the case further, a higher penalty be meted out on Utusan .

“We have won cases against Utusan before, and they were ordered to pay RM200,000, but I guess for Utusan this is kacang putih (peanuts).

“So they figure they can slam us first and then maybe two or three years later pay RM200,000. They should pay RM2 million instead,” he said.

The DAP has been under fire following an ROS investigation into the validity of its CEC election last December.

Zairil Khir Johari was belatedly announced to be elected to the CEC, in place of Vincent Wu who was previously announced as having won a spot, due to what DAP said was a mistake in tabulations.

Pooi Weng Keong, the returning officer for the CEC polls, which is held every three year, resigned over the mistake.

DAP has every reason to be very afraid