Give us a seat, Kayveas tells ‘inactive’ Gerakan

KUALA LUMPUR, June 22 — Datuk M. Kayveas has told Gerakan to train its guns on recapturing Penang from the DAP instead of scrambling for seats elsewhere in the country, accusing the party of being inactive since its dismal electoral showing in the 2008 polls.

The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) president said Gerakan leaders should “reciprocate” and “share” some of its seats with the PPP for the “greater good” of Barisan Nasional (BN).

Kayveas accused Gerakan of not appreciating his quality and talent. — Picture by Choo Choy May

“BN must win. Otherwise, just like in Penang, they went down... they want BN to go down on national [level].

“If they think like that, think evil, then they can keep all their seats. [But] if they want BN to win, they have to come out with some formula,” he told The Malaysian Insider in a recent interview here.

But the former Taiping MP expressed doubt that Gerakan would ever accede to the PPP’s requests.

“You don’t appreciate my quality, you don’t want my talent, you don’t want my knowledge... come on, man,” he said.

Kayveas even labelled Gerakan president Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon a “brick wall” for purportedly refusing to budge over seat negotiations, saying he does not know the latter’s purpose in the party.

“You cannot communicate with him, you cannot penetrate him, you can’t even get a word out of him.

“He doesn’t talk. Let’s talk, man. Let’s share. Let’s see how to win... see a formula for winning. But he doesn’t. I don’t know why he is there in the first place,” he said.

Both the PPP and Gerakan have been on a collision course over the Taiping parliamentary seat in Perak, which had been on “loan” to the PPP for both the 2004 and 2008 general elections.

In exchange, the BN leadership had compensated Gerakan with the Bukit Gantang parliamentary seat in 2004 and Gerik in 2008, both constituencies in Perak.

In 2008, Wanita Gerakan chief Datuk Tan Lian Hoe contested in Gerik and won the seat while Kayveas took a thumping from the DAP’s Nga Kor Ming who won Taiping with a whopping 11,298-vote margin.

Since then, Kayveas has decided to surrender the Taiping seat to Gerakan but wants the party to surrender one of its seats to the PPP in return.

But Gerakan and its leaders, he complained, have not budged on the matter.

“We are not giving up,” he vowed. “I do not feel it is fair that Gerakan should maintain all their seats. I think Gerakan has to give up seats where they cannot win 100 per cent.”

He said this was especially important now that Gerakan has “not been active in the last four years”.

“That’s the problem. They are not even five per cent as active as PPP is now. So how are they going to function? They have to reciprocate. Share. Look at the greater good,” Kayveas said.

PPP is eyeing four parliamentary and 12 state seats in the coming polls, hoping to spread its representatives in Perak, where the PPP was founded, Penang and Kuala Lumpur.

The party contested in Taiping and the Pasir Bedamar state seat in Perak in Election 2008 but failed to capture both.

Gerakan also suffered its worst electoral showing in Election 2008 when it had to surrender Penang to the opposition after failing to secure a single seat in the state it had governed since 1969.