DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang is seeking public opinion on retirement after a perceived threat to ban the party ahead of the next general election.

Lim said he would be embarking on a nationwide tour to seek public feedback on the matter, as well as whether his son Lim Guan Eng should resign as Penang chief minister.

"I never realised that I am such a threat to Najib and the Umno-BN coalition that they could threaten DAP’s deregistration and disallow the use of the rocket logo in the 14th general election unless I retire from Malaysian politics.

"I will tour the country to seek public feedback whether we should succumb to such intimidation from Umno-BN – whether Guan Eng should resign as Penang chief minister and I retire from Malaysian politics," Lim said in a statement today.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's press secretary Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad had last Saturday raised a poser about whether DAP can use its logo in the next general election.

Kit Siang said this showed that Najib's inner circle was seriously considering deregistering DAP.

DAP's status as a party is reportedly in limbo, after its 2012 party election was disputed due to irregularities.

The Registrar of Societies had in September 2014 said in court that its refusal to recognise DAP's central executive committee (CEC), which was re-elected in 2013, was merely advisory and not legally binding.

However, in October 2014, ROS deputy director Mohd Norzam Mustapa maintained that it did not recognise the party CEC election.

Uncertainty over DAP's status caused the party to face a similar possibility of not being able to use its logo for GE13 but the ROS did not block it.

Kit Siang said DAP should be prepared for a number of possibilities.

The first, he said, was that DAP would contest under the Pakatan Harapan logo, should it be registered in time.

Failing that, the elder Lim said, DAP could contest under the logo of its Harapan allies, or even contest as independents.

"Although this will be quite confusing, with DAP Independents contesting in a sea of different independent electoral symbols in the country, I do not think the problems are insuperable in an information era," he said.