S’wak PKR strongman quits

Dominique Ng, who joined the party 12 years ago and became its first state chief, is sore with the leadership for dropping him as a candidate and giving his seat to DAP.

KUCHING: PKR has been dealt a blow just ahead of the Sarawak election when one of the founding fathers of the party’s state chapter, Dominique Ng, announced his resignation today.

Ng, who joined PKR 12 years ago and became the party’s first state chief, said that he was peeved with the current situation.

Speaking at a press conference here, PKR’s sole elected rep complained that he had grown weary of looking over his shoulder for back-stabbers.

“What has happened to me over the past few days is most incredible,” he said.

First, the party gave away his Padungan seat which he won in the 2006 state election in exchange for Batu Lintang with DAP.

Secondly, he was excluded from the list of candidates who would contest in the coming state election.

Ng said that he had sent party supremo Anwar Ibrahim a text message, informing the latter of his resignation.

While he did not tell reporters whether he would contest in the coming election, it however cannot be discounted that Ng could stand as an independent in either Padungan or Batu Lintang.

The vexed leader reiterated that he had been “betrayed and sold off” by the current Sarawak PKR leadership.

“I fel that my loyalty to the party has been repaid with betrayal and treachery by the leadership,” he stressed.

What made Ng bitter was that he was not informed of the seat swap and was confident that he would be re-nomitated for the Padungan constituency.

He had already made the necessary preparation and told his constituents that he would defend the seat for Pakatan Rakyat.

‘It will have no impact’

Commenting on Ng’s resignation, PKR vice-president and Penang Deputy Chief Minister Mansor Othman expressed sadness, but assured that his exit would not impact the party’s chances in the April 16 state polls.

“As a friend, I feel sorry for him,” he said, pointing out that Ng should be open-minded. “PKR is the party of the future and Ng has a role to play.”

Ng became Sarawak PKR chief in September 2006 and held the position until March 2008. During his tenure, a number of leaders who disagreed with him were expelled from the party.

He was then replaced by Anwar who by then brought back the expelled members to the party and recruited many Dayak intellectuals and professionals.

In another development, Mansor said the time had come to show Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud the exit after being in power for more than three decades.

“He has stayed for too long and the issues for the coming election are about him, corruption, abuse of power, land grabbing, poverty and unbalanced development,” he said.

“When you stay in power too long, you become arrogant and tend to neglect the needs of the people,” he said, urging the voters to “punish” Taib for overstaying.

Azmin: We had bigger plans for him

PKR deputy president Azmin Ali meanwhile said that Ng’s exclusion from the state’s polls list was because the party had ‘something better’ for him.

“We want Dominique to represent PKR at parliamentary level because with his experience and networking in the past years, he would be able to be an effective parliamentarian for Sarawak,” he said.

He said both he and Anwar had spoken to Ng on several occassions and that Ng had “expressed his views and concerns” about the swap.

“We were going to look into his concerns… we know he is a meaningful leader in Sarawak but we have to also look at the bigger context.

“We were hopeful that since PKR has let go of Padungan to DAP, DAP will give us a chance to field Ng in the next parliamentary election,” he said. - FMT