DAP overwhelm by its membership increase

The DAP ever since March 2008, has been very much overwhelmed by its increasing party membership following its victory and its success in taking over the Penang state government, becoming a major partner in the Perak and Selangor state governments, as well as its increased opposition presence in states like Melaka, Negri Sembilan, Johor and Sarawak.

Prior to the 2008 general elections, DAP total membership was not even at 10,000 given to its opposition role and the Barisan (BN) government's continuous suppression of dissidents' voice, freedom of speech was controlled and curbed, follow by threat of detention and blacklisting from any government allocations, funding, loans, facilities and many more.

Prior to the 2008 political tsunami, no one have even thought of applying to join the DAP and to participate in its branch and parliamentary events. Even then, most people are basically afraid of even participating in its functions, meetings or simply mention about it.

However, DAP have a very large number of low profile key supporters who had voted the party for years to ensure its political survival and its continuous role being an opposition in both the parliament and state legislative assemblies.

Many of its party leaders and veterans had indeed underwent a lots of sacrifices when putting forward their objectives and their fight for justice, human rights, democracy and equality. Some were even arrested and put behind bars, detained without trial, harassed and being accused of Chinese chauvinism.

And these leaders and veterans should always be remembered, appreciated and in turned whatever they had fought for the people and the results that had ripen today, we all should thank them for what they had fought for all these years. If not because of these leaders and veterans, DAP would not have achieve what they are today.

However, ever since DAP achieved its most successful electoral gain on March 2008, people from all walks of live began to apply to join the party in large numbers. So does members of the other political parties, human rights organizations, social activists, trade unionists, academics and professionals.

And the DAP leaders still being haunted by BN's continuous attack on the party labelling the party as being a "Chinese party", "Chinese chauvinistic party" and worst still being continuously called a "Communist", anti-Malay and so on, began to strategies its entire party machinery in order to do away with all those negative elements by recruiting a number of Malay professionals and activists into its fold.

The first to be brought in was Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim who was appointed the party national vice-chairman. Tunku Aziz was formerly the president of the Tranparency International for Malaysia Chapter, an anti-corruption watch group.

Then came Zairil Khir Johari, the son of the Umno veteran the late Tan Sri Khir Johari and several other more Malay leaders had also emerge at the state and local levels. The latest to jumped into the wagon are former Umno leaders Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz and Aspan Alias who had both announced their entries into DAP in the party's national convention last week.

Besides, the vast increase of membership in the party had also saw the increase of its branches and parliamentary liaison committees (divisions) nationwide, which had also caused a number of stirs in factional fighting and power tussle in the local party elections.

Apart from that the number of factions in the party had also increase and intensify their presence at the parliamentary, state and national levels which saw some stiff contests for top party positions and leadership posts at the local levels. Many party leaders had also initiated the formation of branches in their state in order to secure their influence and positions at higher levels.

Looks like DAP has been overwhelmed by its vast membership increase. More and more people are coming in continuously, even at some branches, membership application forms had ran out of supplies, resulting to the creation of an online, printable application form being made available now in the party's website.

In accepting a vast increase of its membership application, the party had forgotten its traditional process of having have to filter all membership application to ensure it got the good, faithful and committed ones to be party members.

The membership process of the party prior to 2008 emphasized on quality rather than quantity but in aftermath of the 2008 political tsunami, the membership process has been turned from quality to quantity instead.

As the result of the turn around on its membership policy, a large number of opportunist had joined the party after 2008 simply to seek positions and other government connections, business interests and so on. Some of these opportunist had even contested in the party election and defeated many party veterans, thus establishing their control over some branches and parliamentary liaison committees. Then lobbying for local councillorship and the other government related board membership also intensify.

The out of control situation of the membership applications and entries into the party had worried some veterans and leaders to the fact that these negative elements who had joined the party had began to tarnishing the party's image with a number of wrongdoings, power craze and so on.

The number of these negative elements in the party are still small but if the party did not start to control its overwhelmed membership increase, in future the party may end up like Gerakan who lost the Penang state in previous general elections.

As such, we are urging the DAP leadership to exercise caution in its membership processing and acceptance in order to preserve its qualities, standards and the respect from our people.