Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) has urged the "self-appointed leaders of Parti Rakyat Malaysia" (PRM) to stop acting without the consent of members and confusing the public by using the PRM name.

PKR information bureau chief Tian Chua said the "purported 38th PRM Congress" held last Sunday was not attended by properly elected delegates from the branches since all registered branches of PRM had already been integrated into PKR.

In addition, he said that the disgruntled leaders who now claimed to be with PRM were once part of the merged party and had contested for key posts in PKR.

For example, Hassan Abdul Karim (PRM president, photo), SK Song (secretary-general) and Koh Swee Yong had held high positions in PKR and had even contested the 2004 general election under the PKR banner, Chua said.

They had also attended the first merged congress of PKR in 2005 held in Ipoh and witnessed the democratic process of the election to elect committee members.

Moreover, Chua stressed that all members of PRM had also resolved to join PKR en bloc.

"Therefore, these self-appointed leaders by usurping the good name of PRM, are acting without consent of the members. We urged these individuals to behave responsibly and stop trying to confuse the people," he said.

Merger was proper

Chua was commenting on the meeting by some 150 members, during which Hassan claimed that PRM is still functioning as a political party and that it is recognised by the Registrar of Societies.

Hassan had said the group would continue to fight for social justice, fair distribution of powers, national unity and true democracy that have been promoted since the party was formed.

The group has claimed that it had never agreed to the merger, and that the process was flawed in that procedures were not followed to dissolve PRM.

However, Chua said that the resolution for the Keadilan-PRM merger was passed by the membership of both parties respectively.

"The resolution for merger was passed twice by the original PRM in 2000 and 2003, with resounding support with two-thirds majority of the delegates," he said.

"Similarly, Keadilan passed the merger resolution in its annual national conference in 2001 and 2002."

PKR was officially launched in 2003 after a laboured merger between Parti Keadilan Nasional (Keadilan) and PRM, and it was lead by a joint leadership from both parties.