> RoS to determine PPP Presidency

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is to meet the Registrar of Societies (RoS) tomorrow or on 2 June to find who the legitimate president of the People's Progressive Party (PPP) is.

He said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, just before flying off to South Korea today, had asked him to meet the ROS to find out whether Datuk M Kayveas or Senator Datuk T Murugiah was the president.

Najib is scheduled to open the PPP general assembly on 7 June and "if we do not have a decision (on who the PPP president is), we do not know whether he will attend the meeting," Muhyiddin told reporters after attending a religious ceramah (talk) organised by the Pagoh Umno Division, here.

Muhyiddin, who is Umno deputy president and Pagoh Member of Parliament, said Murugiah handed him a letter claiming he was the PPP president when the latter met him at the Royal Malaysian Air Force base in Subang, Selangor, where Najib flew off to South Korea to attend the Asean-South Korea Commemorative Summit.

The PPP leadership crisis erupted after Murugiah, who was sacked by the party's disciplinary board for allegedly tarnishing the good name of the party, claimed he had been elected the president at an extraordinary general meeting convened by a section of party members 24 May in Putrajaya.

However, when the PPP nominations for the post of president closed yesterday, Kayveas was said to have been returned unopposed as president for a fourth five-year term.

Asked whether the leadership crisis in the PPP, a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN), tarnished the BN's image, Muhyiddin said crises in any component party should be resolved swiftly to maintain the coalition's image.

He said it was important for the component parties to avoid differences of opinion among them and resolve crises swiftly at a time when the BN was restoring its image.

"The BN must be seen as a strong and stable coalition," he said - Bernama.