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Monday, April 29, 2013

Controversial cousins conquer and divide in Perak


THE most powerful opposition party in Perak state is headed by two cousins.
Mr Ngeh Koo Ham (left), chairman of Perak's Democratic Action Party (DAP) and his cousin Nga Kor Ming (right), secretary of Perak's DAP, have denied allegations that they run the state chapter of their party like their own little fiefdom. 
By Tan Hui Yee, ST
Both are lawyers by training. Both have sizeable grassroots support. And both are dogged by allegations that they run the state chapter of their party like their own little fiefdom.
Mr Ngeh Koo Ham, 51, is the Perak chairman of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), which won 18 of the 31 state seats that went to the opposition in the 2008 general election. His cousin, Mr Nga Kor Ming, 48, is its secretary.
The two men have risen in prominence of late now that DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has left his Ipoh Timur stronghold for Johor in a high-stakes gamble to win federal power.
Not that they were low profile to begin with. When the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) alliance took control of the state assembly in the 2008 polls, Mr Ngeh would have been a shoo-in for chief minister, if not for the fact that the post had to go to a Malay Muslim. In the end, it went to Parti Islam Semalaysia's Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin.
The opposition lost Perak in 2009 following the defection of three PR assemblymen.
As PR parties jostled publicly for seats in the run-up to nomination day on April 20, news - as well as speculation - of the cousins' alleged power-grabbing moves fed the perception of disunity within opposition ranks.
Over supper after a recent rally, Mr Ngeh tackled the allegations, dismissing the "dictator" label as pure fabrication by mainstream Malaysian media controlled by the government.
"First, they try to find fault by seeing whether there is any scandal," he tells The Straits Times.
"If they cannot find any scandal, maybe there is corruption, or anything that is against the law.
"Or they see if you are lazy, or if you are incapable.
"When they cannot find fault with you, they create jealousy by saying you are powerful."
No one has ever accused the pair of being ineffective or lazy, he stresses.
Yet Mr Ngeh and his cousin have been blamed for the departure of parliamentarian Fong Po Kuan, one of the DAP's brightest young talents when she burst onto the scene in 1999 but quit politics this year. They were also accused of using their choice of election candidates to sideline their opponents within the party.
Even former DAP state assemblyman Hee Yit Foong, whose defection helped trigger the collapse of the opposition-run state government in 2009, has pinned the blame on the cousins' behaviour.
Mr Ngeh brushes aside all this talk as just part and parcel of them having to take tough decisions on behalf of the party.
Besides, he and his cousin have been put in their posts by a regular popular vote - and a secret ballot at that, he says.
"They can reject us anytime."
Being a leader means taking all speculation in one's stride instead of rushing to rebut every falsehood, he says.
"Any word we utter could only aggravate the situation, so we'd rather become victims of unfair criticism than injure a fellow comrade."
Mr Ngeh adds that he bears no grudges against Ms Fong, who had also wanted to quit in 2008 but was persuaded to stay. She has cited personal reasons for leaving and Mr Ngeh stresses he and his cousin had no part in it.
"But if we had to go and tell why she resigned, it won't be very pleasant."
He adopts the same stance when asked about their long simmering rivalry with another senior DAP Perak leader, Mr M. Kulasegaran, which resulted in a spat that spilled onto social media last month through the latter's angry Twitter messages.
For that, Mr Ngeh would only say: "There will be differences in any political party… But for internal party matters, we will resolve it internally."
With all the ugly talk swirling around, he takes comfort that he retains solid support in the state seat of Sitiawan, where he is the elected assemblyman on top of his work as a parliamentarian.
In 2004, he won twice as many votes as his Malaysian Chinese Association opponent, and he improved on that number four years later by garnering three times more than his rival.
The talk, he says, will never touch him in Sitiawan.
"The people know me, who I am. You cannot cheat them."

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