Gerakan president Dr Koh Tsu Koon has come under mounting criticism, including from his Barisan Nasional colleagues, for being an appointed minister.

NONE Today, the minister in the Prime Minister's Department defended himself against a fresh attack from DAP veteran Karpal Singh (Bukit Gelugor) in the Dewan Rakyat.

The opposition leader had accused Koh of coming into power via the 'back door'.

He said the former Penang chief minister should fulfill his general election promise to relinquish all positions if he was not elected by the people.

Karpal added that Koh had no right to be in the Lower House as he was an appointed senator rather than an elected parliamentarian.

However, Koh said that during the general election, he had merely responded to the opposition who told voters not to cast their ballots for him because he could be appointed as a senator.

"So my answer at that time was, 'I prefer to be elected rather than appointed'. So my preference was to be elected because that was during the campaign period.

"But I did not close the door (to the possibility) of being appointed," he told reporters in Parliament this afternoon.

During the March 8 general election, Koh was defeated by DAP's P Ramasamy in the Batu Kawan parliamentary seat and Gerakan eventually lost the state to the opposition party.

Ramasamy is currently Penang deputy chief minister II.

Despite the defeat, Koh was still appointed senator and made a minister overseeing the government's Key Performance Index (KPI).

This had also irked fellow parliamentarian Mohamad Aziz (BN-Sri Gading), who last week criticised Koh for being an 'apple-polisher' and entering the cabinet through the back-door.

Gerakan will not interfere

In a separate development, Koh said the party would not interfere with the graft case involving former Gerakan assemblyperson Yap Soo Sun who was charged in court yesterday.

"No one is above the law although they are innocent until proven guilty. So the process of law has to go on without any intervention and Gerakan would not interfere in it," he added.

According to Koh, Yap did not hold any positions in the party be it at the national or branch levels since the party election in October last year.

"He did not even contest in the last general election," added the party president.

Yesterday, Yap was slapped with seven charges for falsifying information in claiming payments from his allotted constituency budget involving non-existing functions.