Halim Mansor, who has fought a battle since 2019 to be declared the rightful president, said today he had been barred from contesting the post because his nomination paper had not been sent to the correct email address.

“They confirmed receiving my nomination but told me I did not send it to the official email address of the secretary-general. But it (was sent to) one of the addresses of the MTUC secretary-general,” he said.

He told FMT he would sue the MTUC leadership for their refusal to let him contest. On Tuesday, he failed to obtain an injunction to stop the delegates’ conference from being held.

Halim said the elections this weekend were illegal under the MTUC constitution, which states that elections must be held between October and December of the third year of the committee’s triennial term.

The delegates’ conference had been brought forward to this month by the MTUC council.

“This is the kind of leadership they have. They don’t want me, so they stop me using trivial excuses. They even refused to accept me as president after my rival Jaafar Majid, who tied with me in the 2019 election, pulled out from the race in May,” he said.

Halim, who was also president for the 2017-19 term, declared himself president following the party’s standing orders that the immediate past president shall continue as president if there was no outright winner in the election.

However, the general council meeting on March 20 refused to confirm his presidency, Halim said. The Registrar of Societies had yet to respond to his complaint “and there has been no action from them”.

Halim said he had declared that all meetings held by MTUC before the elections are null and void, and he would sue the new MTUC officials for failing to abide by the law and congress constitution.