For the first time in its long history, there could be a contest for the top posts in the Kuching Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCCI) - with possibly some consequences on unity among members and possibly even local Chinese politics.

The challenge to incumbent Wee Kok Tiong, the 44-year-old businessman son of the late well-known Sarawak-born millionaire Wee Boon Ping and a former senator, comes from a faction, led by property developer Lee Chong Lin, which has nominated 28 names for positions in the 35-member management committee.

Wee, the defeated Barisan Nasional candidate for Bandar Kuching in the last general election, submitted a separate list of 37 nominations when nominations closed at noon on Saturday.

The two-tier elections will take place on March 18. About 1,740 members, including about 1,200 whose membership applications were approved earlier this month, will decide who among the 65 names will sit on the management committee which in turn decides who among them will fill the various key positions, including president and deputy president.

The elections are held every two years, and Wee is in his first term.

At the time of writing, newspapers reported that there is a fresh attempt to try and avert a bitter fight, with some community leaders putting forward a proposal that they hope can avoid just that.

The proposal calls for Wee and his supporters conceding five of the key posts, including the deputy president post. It is not immediately known whether the challenger group is agreeable to anything less than Wee standing aside and allow new faces to take over.

Said a KCCCI senior member: "Basically what the group led by Lee wants is a more representative committee with all sections of the Chinese community involved in response to demands of younger members."

Lee's team includes some well-known Chinese businessmen who have much financial clout and they are pushing for a change on the ground that the KCCCI 'is the least pro-active' among the three chambers in Kuching, Sibu and Miri.

'Inactive leadership'

According to one of Lee's supporters, "The KCCCI under Wee's leadership seems to be active only in organising Chinese New Year celebrations.

"We appreciate what his late father had contributed to the community, but we need a chamber that is more pro-active. There is nothing personal in this. There is a need for a change," he said.

Membership growth has been stagnant at less than 500 for many years until earlier this month.

Meanwhile, some efforts were made to avoid a contest in the days or weeks prior to the close of nominations.

"No-one was prepared to give way, so it ended up in both factions coming forward with their own lists," one chamber official told malaysiakini .

Days before nominations closed, Wee denied rumours that he would not stay beyond two terms, and in a brief press conference after nominations closed, he confirmed that he was defending his position as president.

On the surface, Wee appears to have a better chance of carrying the day because of the support he is likely to get from many of the new members admitted earlier this month, which saw the chamber's membership swelling to 1,740 almost overnight.

Among the1,200 new members, about 800 are said to be his supporters.

A senior Chinese newspaper journalist told malaysiakini : "One cannot be sure that many among them will not come forward to support the Lee faction either."

Among the Lee faction's list of nominations are former city councillor and businessman Lau Kim Yong and Richard Wee Liang Chiat, a corporate leader whose father Wee Hood Teck , once headed the same chamber during the 1960s and 1970s.

Lau was said to be unhappy when he was passed over as choice of BN's candidate for Bandar Kuching after the Sarawak United People's Party (Supp) picked Wee instead.

His discontent allegedly grew after some top leaders of the party had reneged on what some of his supporters claimed were promises made when he agreed to give way.

If this pro-Lee group is able to convince more members to support Lee then there is an even chance of displacing Wee and have a new team altogether to manage the chamber, according to the same journalist who has close ties to some of Lee's supporters.

Another issue of great interest to members is a piece of valuable real estate land that has been alienated to the chamber by the government in exchange for its old site in Main Bazaar which has been turned into a Sarawak Chinese Museum.

The new site, behind the HSBC Bank in Padungan, adjoins some new development of high-value commercial properties. Some members are said to be unhappy at the manner in which some problems relating to the land issue have been handled by the present committee.

This and other issues are likely to be the subject of the campaigning between now and March 18 to force Wee out. But Wee has a group of influential supporters around him, including some state government leaders.

"If they still see him as an asset, they may try and influence, but they need to consider the political aspects, with state elections and the challenge from the opposition in Supp's face now," one political observer noted.

TONY THIEN is malaysiakini 's Sarawak-based stringer.