Just say you want to be president, Ong tells No 2

By Lee Wei Lian, The Malaysian Insider

An embattled Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat lashed out at his new deputy, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai and his supporters for asking to have another extraordinary general meeting on holding fresh party elections, and questioning a proposed unity plan for the divided MCA.

In a blog posting today, the MCA president said that if Liow wants to be president, he should say so directly.

“If the newly-elected deputy president wants me to resign so that he could ascend to the presidency, I believe he should make his stand very clear,” Ong wrote bluntly in his blog, www.ongteekeat.net, which has become his main mouthpiece since the crisis erupted.

“We don’t solve problems by beating around the bush,” he said, adding Liow and his supporters had harped on the need to respect the results of the Oct 10 EGM where a vote of no-confidence was moved against Ong.

“That clearly means they want me to resign. In the same breath, they claimed they are not forcing me to resign. I, not to mention the general public, personally find their approach very confusing.”

That Ong has been making his displeasure with Liow and his supporters clear via his blog is an indication of the level of strain and distrust between the president and his erstwhile supporters such as Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong and Datuk Wong Siong Hwee.

Central committee members aligned to Liow did an about-turn yesterday over their initial opposition to an EGM to call for fresh polls, as first suggested by Ong.

They had also claimed that central committee members had been kept in the dark over the unity plan, a claim Ong has dismissed.

Some observers, such as Datuk Theng Bok, former chairman of the “Save MCA” campaign, have questioned the sincerity of the call for fresh polls and speculate that it could be an attempt to strengthen Liow’s bargaining position.

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