'Wrong Muthu, democracy is alive in MIC'

A MIC leader has countered the allegation by M Muthupalaniappan that democracy is dead in the party following his disqualification from the presidential contest yesterday.

Party secretary-general Dr S Subramaniam said it was wrong for Muthupalaniappan to make such a remark.

The fact that the nomination process for the top post took place in itself proved that democracy is still alive in the party, he added in a statement today.

Subramaniam, who is also the human resources minister, said the election steering committee was only following the election laws and party constitution.

"Both candidates had many of their nominations nullified as they did not conform to party election rules. We have to uphold the rules to preserve the party's integrity and image.

"If we don't do that then we are not respecting those laws that keep the party intact," he added.

48 out of 53 nominations rejected

Muthupalaniappan's hope of challenging the incumbent president S Samy Vellu was dashed when the steering committee rejected 48 out of the 53 nominations he received.

Since the onset, the Seremban-based lawyer and former vice-president had accused his rivals of using underhand tactics to stop him from taking on the president of three decades.

He alleged that the incumbent's camp went from door-to-door to secure nominations from those who had already nominated Muthupalaniappan thus rendering the nominations invalid.

Yesterday, the steering committee's head S Vijayanathan said 99 percent of the rejections were related to duplicity.

Out of the 572 nominations for Samy Vellu, 117 were deemed unacceptable, leaving him with 455. A candidate has to secure a minimum of 50 nominations in order to be eligible to contest for the post.

Following Muthupalaniappan's disqualification, Samy Vellu was declared president without contest for a record 11th term.

In his victory speech, the 73-year-old politician declared that this would be his last term.