Teo and group stages LDP coup
(The Star) – A coup has been staged in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) with one faction holding a supreme council meeting Tuesday and sacking the party president Datuk V.K.Liew.
In the ongoing leadership dispute in Sabah’s oldest Barisan Nasional component party, 29 LDP supreme council members who was sacked by Liew two weeks ago held the meeting where they made the decision.
They sacked Liew as a president and suspended him and his newly appointed secretary general Loretto Padua as members of the party.
They also endorsed party deputy president Senator Datuk Chin Su Phin to be acting president at the meeting held at the Sabah Golf and Country Club here
LDP secretary general Datuk Teo Chee Kang said that they were the legitimate “original’’ supreme council and Liew’s move to sack all of them earlier was illegal and not in accordance to the party’s constitution.
He also said that following the supreme council decision to suspend the membership of the president and his proclaimed “secretary general,’’ the two would be barred from entering the party headquarters to conduct any business in Kapayan.
“Liew’s action has brought disrepute to the party and we the supreme council has decided to remove him and Padua pending disciplinary action,’’ said Teo, the only state cabinet minister from LDP in Chief Minister’s Datuk Musa Aman cabinet.
“Liew is the only elected office bearer in his supreme council, he has tried to sack all of us and set up a new supreme council illegally,’’ he said, adding that they had the support of 19 of the 29 party divisions.
Asked how they were going implement their decisions and legitimise their position as the rightful LDP leaders, Teo said that they have their ways and means to do it.
“For, now we can’t disclose. It is a secret,” he said.
He said that they would go ahead with the Oct 20 party annual congress and will hold an election and form a new disciplinary and election committee.
Teo also said that the supreme council only endorsed to fully support the president and the deputy president in its resolution in June but never supported any resolution for no contest for the two positions.
Liew does not recognise the rival group and has been holding his meetings in Sandakan with none of the party leaders using the party headquarters here to hold meetings.
