Threat to deregister party issued

REGISTRAR for Political Parties Dr Alphonse Gelu has threatened to deregister a major political party before next year’s general elections for not registering with the Investment Promotions Authority.
Gelu said that the dominant, prominent and influential party had to be deregistered  to  avoid a constitutional crisis if it ever returned after the elections  and formed the next government.
“This party with good political and executive leadership, with good marketing strategies, had played an influential role in forming the government in the 2012 elections,” he said.
“This party is now preparing to repeat the same feat in the 2017 national election. But I will not hesitate to deregister it for not complying to the Organic Law on Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates. Although this party is registered with us, it is not registered with IPA. It must be registered with IPA before registering with us.”
Gelu said during a two-day party branding and campaign strategies workshop for party executives that there were five parties that were not registered with IPA.
“We did approach them and they have already fixed up their registration with IPA. But not this party. I am very disappointed with this party. The party has been around and has formed governments for a very long time and they should know better on how to operate a political party in the country.”
Gelu said that it was a concern for them because under the law, a party has to be registered with IPA before registering with the Office for Political Parties.
“It is all about compliances .There are legal implications for political parties which are registered with the office but not with IPA. That’s the reason when we went through the IPA registration, we found out that those parties were deregistered with IPA.”