Kok: Perhaps I can do a better job than Zahid

INTERVIEW For someone who could be slapped at anytime for a bounty of up to RM1,200, Seputeh MP Teresa Kok appeared pretty cheerful.

As she prepared for an interview with KiniTV in its Bangsar studio yesterday, Kok, who turns 50 this year, betrayed her girlish side as she giggled and asked for time to powder her nose before the cameras roll.

However, asked how she felt when she heard that Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had waved off the slap offer bounty as not a threat against her, a crease forms between her eyebrows.

Kok shared that she had actually planned to write to the home minister and police - a move that might seem at once naive and hopeful for someone who has weathered Malaysian politics for two decades.

“After I received that threat, I discussed it with my colleagues and we were thinking to write a letter to the home minister and the inspector-general of police to express our concern,” said the fourth-term MP, who first cut her teeth as aide to DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang in 1990.

“We didn't expect that two days later, Zahid made the statement (that there was) no need to investigate until I am slapped... or it is a threat to kill me.

“It is very disappointing that the home minister make such a remark. At the time, I had the feeling that 'look, this is the kind of cabinet ministers that we have'.

“I wish I can take over and sit in their place. Maybe I can do a better job,” she giggled as the frown disappeared and her face lit up.

Last week, Kok's image was superimposed on that of a chicken’s on banners advertising a RM500 bounty for anyone who is first toslap her and record it on video.

A group of Malay NGOs claimed she had insulted Islam in apolitical satire she produced for Chinese New Year.

In keeping with the chicken theme, they even slaughtered a few chooks and smeared the blood on Kok's picture for good measure.

Although images of Kit Siang, his son and DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, and PKR representative Lee Khai Loon were also smeared with blood, it would appear that it was really Kok who was the main target.

'Why I am a target'

Kok, who holds the record for bagging the highest majority at the 2013 general election - an astounding 51,552 votes in her Kuala Lumpur parliamentary seat of Seputeh - has a theory.

“First, they (the protesters) want to look for a DAP person (to target) and I am a woman. It is also because I am Christian...

“Woman, Christian and Chinese,” she said, her voice rising slightly at the other ‘C’ word.

“‘(A) Chinese who controls Malays’ - this is the line they use in the kampung areas. This is why I become the target.”

Kok, who is known for her high-pitch voice and feisty animated gestures in parliamentary debates, however insisted that she would not be cowed into submission.

After all, this is not the first time she has received threats of violence. In 2008, two Molotov cocktails were lobbed into the compound of her family home which Kok shares with her siblings and parents.

Attached to one of the bottles were threats and vulgarities not quite unlike those uttered at the demonstration in Pudu last week.

She knows that her retaliations - starting from her dogged rebuttal to claims that she told a mosque to lower the volume of the azan which resulted in an apology from her accuser, former Menteri Besar Mohd Khir Toyo - has only earned her more vitriol.

But she remained unfazed.

“I always go back (home) in an optimistic manner. I'm not really fearful. Even after the threat, I carry on my life as usual, attend functions and so on. I carry on with my work,” she said.

“All eyes are on them (her detractors). Everyone is watching.”