Gerakan veep slams party leadership over show-cause letter

By Ann Tan, The Star

A defiant Gerakan vice-president Huan Cheng Guan has slammed the party again, following its show-cause letter to him for criticising the party leadership.

Huan said he was “happy” to have been issued the letter as it showed that party leaders were concerned about him.

He said would look at the letter, which was sent to his house in Penang, when he returned in a day or two and decide whether to reply.

He was in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Huan was asked to comment on the statement by Gerakan secretary-general Teng Chang Yeow that the central working committee decided to issue the letter to Huan for expressing dissatisfaction with the top party leadership.

In turn, Huan referred to the controversy in the Machang Bubok division where some 30 members from four branches took umbrage with state chairman Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan for appointing an outsider, Tan Teik Chuan, as coordinator.

“No matter how the members shouted, protested, phoned or put up big banners, nobody seemed to answer them,” he said.

“There was not even a letter to ask them about the problem or to provide them with an explanation. But in my case, I was immediately given a show-cause letter.”

Asked whether opposition party members have approached him to join them, Huan said: “I have a lot of friends in the Opposition, and they also include a former Gerakan member.”

It is believed that he was referring to Nibong Tebal MP Tan Tee Beng of PKR, a former Penang Gerakan Youth vice-chairman.

When contacted, Tan said he was expelled from Gerakan in 2000 for being outspoken on certain issues.

“Huan is my good friend, and he is as vocal as me. He should remain and fight it out internally, unless he has plans to further his struggle on another platform.

“Gerakan leaders have never changed their attitude, not even after the drubbing the party received in the general election last year,” he said.