Chua tightens screws on Ong

The MCA president’s clique is trying to prevent the Pandan incumbent’s nomination as a direct BN candidate.

PETALING JAYA: Some MCA leaders, alarmed by a suggestion from the Prime Minister, are anxious to prevent the nomination of Ong Tee Keat as a direct BN candidate to defend his Pandan parliamentary seat.

MCA insiders told FMT that these leaders spent much of a recent central committee meeting indulging in Ong bashing and trying to win over the more sober members of the policy-making body to their side.

The objective was to reach a consensus to reject such a decision by BN and to sack Ong from the party should he accept the nomination.

It is not known whether a consensus has been reached.

The meeting was chaired by party chief Dr Chua Soi Lek, who has not made any credible attempt to hide from public knowledge his dislike of Ong since they fought each other in the 2010 presidential election.

The sources said the committee members who joined the president in verbal attacks against Ong included Chua’s son Tee Yong, party secretary-general Kong Cho Ha, deputy president Liow Tiong Lai, vice-president Dr Ng Yen Yen and Youth chief Wee Ka Siong. Liow and Wee used to be staunch supporters of Ong from the days when he was the party’s youth chief.

Some insiders said Fong Chan Onn, the chairman of Star Publications, was also at the meeting although he is not a member of the central committee.

Some party veterans, already uncomfortable with the longstanding feud between Chua and Ong, were dismayed to hear of what happened at the meeting, coming as it did so close to the general election.

They said the open animosity between the president and his predecessor played badly with Chua’s favourite rhetoric against Pakatan Rakyat—that its member parties have no common purpose and are united in name only.

That kind of rhetoric would now appear to be “pure hypocrisy, the pot calling the kettle black”, said an incensed veteran.

There is also talk that Chua’s insistence on dropping Ong from MCA’s list of candidates has angered top Umno officials in Selangor.

“Chua should not put pressure or threaten the Prime Minister just to achieve his personal political agenda when BN is focused on fielding winnable candidates,” an MCA source said.

Pundits say Chua’s dislike of Ong is tied up with his determination to shore up his son’s political future. Apparently, he sees rival leaders like Ong as obstacles to this objective and places the former president at the top of his hit list.

Some of Chua’s critics also see him as a man of great contradictions. “A very clear illustration of this,” said one critic, “were the public remarks he made recently in praise of Jason Teoh, his preferred candidate for the Gelang Patah parliamentary constituency”.

“Jason Teoh worked hard these four years; so we must be fair to him and the 13,000 MCA members in Gelang Patah,” Chua was quoted as saying to explain Teoh’s qualification as the BN contender against DAP’s Lim Kit Siang.

The critic asked: “So why is it fair to the thousands of voters in Pandan for MCA to drop Tee Keat, who has worked hard in the constituency for the past four years?”