A group of about 45 people claiming to be DAP members staged a rally in front of Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng's service centre in Air Putih today, demanding fresh party polls following a technical glitch and the resignation of the returning officer.

This is despite Lim, who is DAP secretary-general and state assemblyperson for Air Putih, saying there would be no fresh DAP polls, but that he may consider the matter if substantial branches or leaders write, internally, to the party's leadership.

The group was led by S Sivasamy, who says he was a DAP voter in Sungai Bakap, but has now shifted to Greenlane.

The protesters, mostly in their late teens or early twenties, repeatedly shouted "We want justice!", and demanded that the DAP holds another round of internal polls, despite the party's chairperson Karpal Singh saying that the corrected results "are final".

The protesters also expressed support for Deputy Chief Minister II P Ramasamy who also failed to get into the central executive committee (CEC), but was later appointed as its deputy secretary-general.

NONEThey carried banners with slogans reading "Election Fraud 30 years, Independent Auditors, Re-election of CEC", "DAP government practises favouritism, forget the sacrifice of Indian community during GE12, stop the lies, we want new elections", and "Who is the real Zairil Khir Johari?".

The group targeted Zairil, who is Lim's political secretary, as the new results found him propelled to the top 20 central executive committee posts.

In the earlier results declared on Dec 15 last year during the party's triennial congress in Penang, Zairil failed to make the mark.

The new election results also led to former DAP vice-chairperson and senator Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim criticising Zairil as a non-Malay, but the latter shot back by expressing great sadness and disappointment that the former had "fallen so low" and attacked his lineage and family name.

The rally comes days after a faction split  from the Indian Progressive Front held a similar demonstration in Taman Supreme, where members of the DAP protested their actions.

Ramasamy had denied any involvement in the rally, which was supposedly held at the request of DAP members in Prai, Bagan Dalam and Nibong Tebal, describing it as a "work of BN agents".

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