The frosty relationship between MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek and his deputy Liow Tiong Lai since the general election, today erupted into a full blown war.

Addressing the press at the MCA headquarters today, the usually soft-spoken Liow let his emotions known, calling Chua a "dictator", "obtrusive" and "a spin doctor" repeatedly in Mandarin.

Liow's outburst follows Chua's claim that the former had put pressure on latter to step down as MCA president.

Liow insisted that this allegation was totally untrue and described it as a form of bully tactic.

"Stop bullying people. There is a limit to my patience," he said, while contorting his face in anger.

On claims that Chua behaved like a "dictator", Liow said that the party president had made the party look inconsistent with how he implemented the party's EGM resolution to not accept any government positions.

Despite not going into specifics, it was clear that Liow was referring to the party's recent decision to allow Tee Siew Keong, a close ally of Chua, to keep his party membership despite being a member of the Johor cabinet.

Just 'reminding' Chua

There had also been disgruntlement over the party presidential council's decision to reject a complaint against Chua for holding on to the position of Penang Port Commission chairperson and him defending MCA vice-president Dr Ng Yen Yen's appointment as Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) chairperson.

"On May 6, he (Chua) called me, asking me to direct village chiefs and councillors to resign immediately. And during the presidential council meeting on May 11, everyone had agreed to follow the resolutions.

"Some 11,400 people have to resign from their positions. But have we, and the party president, executed this resolution? We have to look at who can hold governmental posts and who can't.

"Today what we see is the president playing some games with this resolution,” accused Liow.

"Once he (Chua) wanted to resign immediately, another time he wanted to step down after completing his tasks. And he changed his stand again.

"He can't lead the party properly. We can't see him leading the party through dictatorship,” he said, adding that his purpose was to remind Chua to not betray the party's stand.