Gerakan boss on the warpath against MCA

comments     YS Tong     Published     Updated

Gerakan president Dr Lim Keng Yaik (photo, below) is expected to speak his mind at the Barisan Nasional supreme council meeting next month, about the "instigator' within MCA ranks who allegedly orchestrated opposition to the Penang Outer Ring Road (Porr) project.

A Gerakan source said Lim is likely to lodge a complaint with BN, a move that will fuel the on-going bickering between the party and MCA over the issue.

Yesterday, MCA Penang state assembly representatives Lim Boo Chang (Datuk Keramat) and Tan Cheng Liang (Jawi) were suspended by their party because they had abstained from voting on a DAP-led motion to defer the RM1.02 billion highway project last month.

However, this has not appeased Gerakan, which had earlier demanded that the two be sacked. It is incensed by MCA's allegations that Penang Gerakan head and Chief Minister Dr Koh Tsu Koon had not properly instructed BN state assembly representatives on how to vote on the issue.

"Gerakan will have to defend itself. We did not start all these problems, so Keng Yaik as the party chief will not let those culprits off easily," said the source.

"The party sees the abstention of Tan and Boo Chang as politicking, which has little to do with interests of the people."

MCA and Gerakan, the two major Chinese-based parties in BN, have been competing for Chinese electoral support in Penang. Gerakan was set up in 1968 by a splinter group of MCA, which was founded in 1949.

Opposition to project

On Sunday, Gerakan's Lim named MCA Penang chairperson Wong Kam Hoong as the "instigator" who had allegedly influenced Boo Chang and Tan to abstain from voting.

Lim claimed that he had ample proof based on news reports and his sources that Wong had organised activities to oppose the project, funded by the federal government to alleviate traffic congestion in Penang.

"If we allow all this to go haywire, it will be the downfall of the government and Malaysia. Don't play politics until it breaks the very thread which binds the delicate fabric of BN's cohesiveness," he said.

However, Wong, member of Parliament for Bayan Baru, countered that he had been made the "scapegoat" for Gerakan's incompetence in administering Penang.

Asked yesterday what would he do if a complaint were lodged against him, Wong said "he (Lim) can lodge...I have a right to be heard too later on".

String of allegations

Gerakan central committee member and Penang state exco Dr Teng Hock Nan went a step further by citing "preliminary evidence" to back Lim's accusation.

Teng cited a Guang Ming Daily report dated June 23 which said Wong had convened a closed-door meeting at his service centre for several anti-Porr groups.

"It was reported specifically that under the 'suggestion and guidance' of Wong, the three committees agreed to form a common front to oppose the project and to link up with groups from other areas to form a greater alliance," Teng said.

He further said an interview in the same newspaper had quoted Wong as reiterating his stand with the affected residents to "oppose the controversial road project".

Teng said Wong's anti-Porr stance was made at a time when two MCA state assembly members Koay Kar Huah (Bukit Gelugor) and Dr Loh Hock Hun (Paya Terubong) were helping the state government to work with affected residents to find mitigation measures.

Wong had also reportedly led the anti-Porr groups to pray at a temple for the project to be cancelled and had pledged to consume vegetarian food for nine days to fulfil his religious obligation.

In an interview with Kwang Wah Yit Poh on Nov 19, Wong reportedly said 90 percent of MCA state assembly representatives were against the project. Teng said Wong had told these representatives to make their stand "in accordance with their own conscience and facts of the matter".

Two days later, when the vote was taken, Boo Chang and Tan abstained. Only four MCA representatives voted against the motion, while five others were absent.

"It is quite clear that Wong was unilaterally encouraging, if not directing, MCA elected representatives to take a different stand from that of other BN representatives," Teng added.



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