A minor tiff broke out in parliament today after Deputy Home Minister Chor Chee Heung advised voters in the Permatang Pauh by-election to be cautious of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is pitted against main rival Arif Shah Omar Shah from Barisan Nasional coalition.

chor chee heung "I hope voters in Permatang Pauh will not be fooled by Anwar Ibrahim’s campaign," said Chor, the Barisan MP for Alor Star. Balloting for the by-election begins tomorrow, Aug 26.

The minister was responding to an additional question posed by Sri Gading Barisan MP Mohamed Aziz, who questioned Anwar’s aptitude.

Mohamed Aziz said the PKR leader had once rejected PAS’ hardline Islamic policies and yet the two were now coalition partners in the Pakatan Rakyat.

The squabble began when DAP MP for Cheras, Tan Kok Wai, questioned the lack of provisions in the Societies Act 1966 to deal with phantom members in political parties. Tan used rival party, MCA, as an example.

tan kok wai Tan accused MCA of having only about 100,000 properly registered members, but yet claims to have more than one million members. Tan slammed the government for not investigating the claim.

"(The people) have been fooled into joining a party and) it is against the principle of democracy," said Tan.

Chorus of protests

His comments sparked a chorus of protests from BN MPs, who accused him of bad intentions. They argued that he had no right to question MCA, but Tan merely retorted “the truth hurts.”

Chor replied that existing provisions were good enough to monitor all registered societies. The minister also said every registered society is required to review the number of their members annually.

He then quipped that the reason why Tan raised the matter could be because DAP probably had phantom members.

Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia had to intervene to stop the squabble, stressing that "if you dare to criticise others, then you must also be prepared to accept criticisms."

There were only about 20-odd parlimeatarians present at today’s proceedings.

Permatang Pauh: Mother of all by-elections