Karpal: Conquer Putrajaya before we get too old
DAP chairperson Karpal Singh said he hopes the party's ageing leaders would have the chance to be in the federal government.
DAP chairperson Karpal Singh said he hopes the party's ageing leaders would have the chance to be in the federal government.
"We must, because the leaders are getting very old. We must be given an opportunity before we retire, and when I say ‘we', I include Lim Kit Siang (right)."We have young people. I see very few old people now. What we have, we are perhaps the last of the Mohicans.
"The young must take over from us, that is a natural process. From what I see today, these young people, you are the ones who are going inherit the next government in this country." he told the party's delegates.
He added that the rest of the country will follow Penang's example and urged the members to be prepared for power.
Both Karpal and Lim are in their early-70s.
In a press conference later, he denied that he was hinting at an early retirement and was in fact expressing hope that Pakatan would come into power soon.
Final warning
Karpal had also warned the Registrar of Societies (ROS) in his speech that DAP is a strong party that should not be messed with.
"If there is any action (that ROS takes) that is against the law, we will take them to court. Do not trivialise (main-main) what I said earlier.
"This is the final warning to the ROS: Change your attitude and your behaviour," he said, to the loud cheers and applause of delegates.
He cited today's record attendance of about 85 percent of its 2,576 eligible delegates as proof of the party's strength.
In comparison, the attendance rate of the last congress was 71.6 percent, which was also a record-breaker then.
The ROS had ordered DAP to hold a re-election for its powerful Central Executive Committee (CEC) following allegations of vote-rigging and that some delegates were not given sufficient notice of the DAP National Congress, held on Dec 15 last year.
DAP had denied these allegations and decried that the ROS has not justified its decision and reasons for not entertaining the party's rebuttal of the allegations.
In his speech later, the party's secretary-general Lim Guan Eng (right) reiterated that today's Special Congress was held to deny ROS any pretext to deregister the party.
He said the party - now with second most number of MPs after Umno - has become a victim of its own success, and claimed that BN is therefore abusing the ROS to "finish off" DAP.
"DAP will not allow such dirty, desperate and destructive tactics by BN to finish off the DAP. There is no doubt that this crisis is one of the worst ever in DAP's history," he told the delegates.
On another note, he said Pakatan Rakyat has only 29 seats that were won with less than a five percent margin, compared to BN's 55 seats.
Therefore, he said Pakatan Rakyat still has a good chance of winning the next general election.
