It is open season in the MCA with the party’s mild-mannered number two publicly lashing out at his party boss, Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.
“Stop bullying people. There is a limit to my patience,” an angry Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said at the end of a public forum at the party’s headquarters as their simmering difference boiled over in public.
Liow’s outburst came after three days of pent-up anger over the party’s decision to revoke the suspension of Tee Siew Keong, a close ally of Dr Chua.
The Johor executive councillor was suspended for three years for breaking the party’s resolution to turn down any government posts if it fared worse than the 2008 general election. It did.
Liow’s outburst follows Dr Chua’s claim that Liow had put pressure on him to quit as MCA president. Liow sent a statement this morning refuting it.
He said the allegation was totally untrue and described it as a form of “bully tactic”.
Liow said the central committee meeting on Thursday had decided to hold a secret ballot over the decision to overturn Tee’s suspension.
“We wanted a show of hands but he wanted a secret ballot,” he told The Malaysian Insider by phone this evening, referring to Dr Chua.
Liow said the revoking of the suspension had turned the party into a vehicle where decisions were made on the whims and fancies of the president.
He said the party grassroots had been demanding to know why the central committee had gone against the delegates’ resolution to not accept any government posts.
Party members had also questioned the presidential council’s decision to reject a complaint against Dr Chua for holding on to the position of Penang Port Commission chairperson and him defending MCA vice-president Dr Ng Yen Yen’s appointment as Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board chairperson.
Liow said today that Dr Chua had called him to tell him to direct village chiefs and councillors to resign immediately after the polls, a decision which was endorsed by the May 11 presidential council meeting.
“Some 11,400 people resigned from their positions. But have we, and the party president, executed this resolution? We have to look at who can hold governmental posts and who can’t.
“Today what we see is the president playing some games with this resolution,” Liow told The Malaysian Insider.
Dr Chua had claimed that Liow met him three times after the 13th general election to ask him to step down.
According to the party constitution, once the president steps down, the deputy can take the post without becoming acting president.
Liow said in a statement early today, “I am disappointed that he had stated that I have persistently confronted him to step down.”
Dr Chua has claimed that at the second and the third meetings, Liow asked when the president was going to retire. – September 8, 2013.
