In a letter to the party dated Nov 8, the registrar, Nawawi bin Mat, said stern action could be taken against it, including deregistration, if PPBM continued to use “Bersatu” as the short form of its name.

Nawawi was reported to have told the party that it was not allowed to use the word Bersatu in its ceramah, publications, posters and bunting, among other things, according to The Star.

The party was formed by former Umno leaders Mahathir Mohamad and Muhyiddin Yassin earlier this year in their campaign to oust Najib Razak as prime minister and leader of Barisan Nasional and Umno.

The party’s application for registration was approved in September.

Muhyiddin, who is PPBM president, said at the time that the registrar had stood by its decision not to allow the party to promote itself as “Bersatu” and that amendments had also been made to the party’s official logo.

“We are not really happy that we are not allowed to use Bersatu as acronym. RoS argued that there are other parties using the same word,” he said then. “However, we do not want to dispute and will comply with the RoS,” he told reporters on Sept 8.

The home minister, Ahmad Zaid Hamidi, had previously said that the registrar had not allowed the use of “Bersatu” as the short-form because six other registered political parties and organisations also had the word Bersatu in their names.