How Lee was spared RM5 million
Okay, the question is not how much Lee was spared (RM5 million in penalty) when he resigned. We know it is RM5 million. The question is how much was he ‘compensated’ for resigning? That is the more relevant question.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Lee Chin Cheh said he had a five-minute meeting with Anwar, three hours before he handed his resignation letter to state speaker Hannah Yeoh.
“I wanted to know whether I would be penalised if I quit as all elected representatives were required to sign a contract before GE13. I also wanted confirmation that he (Anwar) would be standing there and thankfully, he put my mind at ease.”
Lee denied claims he quit because he could not handle the workload or that he was forced, or paid to give up the seat. “It’s all nonsense! I asked for nothing. I volunteered because I believe it will lead to a better Selangor in the future.”
As such, roping Anwar on board, and eventually helming the state, would help speed things up, he believed. — Eileen Ng (The Malaysian Insider)
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Over the past three weeks, Malaysians have been given a muddle of reasons for the by-election, brought about by the abrupt resignation of PKR’s incumbent assemblyman, Lee Chin Cheh. The continuing silence of the man, who won the Kajang state seat in last year’s general election with a 6,824-vote majority, has fuelled all sorts of speculation.
Other than his official resignation letter, there hasn’t been a squeak from the reputedly articulate 43-year-old corporate lawyer, who joined PKR in 2008 after being a Gerakan member for about 10 years. Was it all planned beforehand or was he forced to quit? There are just too many contradictions in the proffered explanations to comprehend.
Instead of rational answers, we are getting a stream of bafflegab — perplexing and pretentious verbiage from the party’s mouthpieces. Some of the things, as explained by the party’s chief strategist Rafizi Ramli, need a real stretch of the imagination — like the excuse that the by-election was needed to prevent a Barisan Nasional coup in Selangor through the declaration of an emergency, as was done in Kelantan in 1977.
It has also been suggested that Anwar had to become the MB to tackle a rise in racial and religious tension and use his political experience to repel attacks against the state government led by Khalid, labelled by his own party as a “good administrator but poor politician”.
Tensions over the word “Allah” and the issue of confiscation of Bibles have also been cited as justifications for Anwar’s entry into Selangor. But don’t the parties in Pakatan Rakyat occupy 44 of the 56 state seats in Selangor, much more than the two-thirds needed to amend the state’s constitution and repeal laws, like the 1988 enactment forbidding non-Muslims from using “Allah” and other “Islamic” words?
Surely, there is no need to change the MB to do that? By the way, a similar law barring non-Muslims from using those words exists in Penang, another PR-ruled state, since 2010 although there have been no cases of Bible seizures there yet.
In not so many words, Malaysians have also been told that the real “strategic reasons” could not be revealed because we would not be able to understand them. But the one that takes the cake must be Azmin’s statement that Kajang voters should feel “grateful” for Anwar’s decision to be the candidate. — M. Veera Pandiyan (The Star)
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So there you have it. Pro-opposition news portal The Malaysian Insider has reported what Lee Chin Cheh has to say about his ‘abrupt and unexpected’ resignation as the Kajang State Assemblyman. And by Lee’s own admission, his resignation was planned all along. Hence it was not ‘abrupt and unexpected’ as we are being made to believe.
Lee admitted that he had a meeting with Anwar Ibrahim three hours before he handed in his resignation. And the reason for this meeting was so that Lee can get Anwar’s assurance that he (Lee) would not have to pay back PKR RM5 million as penalty for resigning.
80% of the PKR candidates who contested the May 2013 general election were made to sign a personal bond (a copy which you can see below). The purpose of this bond is so that any PKR candidate who wins the election and then resigns would have to pay back the party RM5 million. And Lee was worried that he would have to pay back PKR RM5 million if he resigned.
Why were only 80% of the candidates forced to sign this bond? Why were the other 20% not also forced to sign this bond? And who are these people who were exempted from signing the bond? Are the 80% who were forced to sign this bond the untrustworthy candidates while the 20% who were not forced to sign this bond the more trustworthy ones?
The second purpose of Lee’s meeting with Anwar was so that the former can get an assurance from the latter that the latter would be the candidate contesting the Kajang by-election. Lee felt that Anwar should take over the post of the Selangor Menteri Besar and this would only be possible if he contested the Kajang seat in the by-election.
So all this while we were being fed a pack of lies. And M. Veera Pandiyan raised some very pertinent points in his article in The Star today. In short, all those things that they say Anwar needs to do and therefore he needs to become the Menteri Besar to do it can actually be done even if Anwar is not the Menteri Besar. And if Anwar cannot or does not do it now, what makes you think he can and will do it once he becomes Menteri Besar?
Okay, so Lee and 80% of the other PKR candidates are supposed to pay back PKR RM5 million if they were to resign their seats. But Lee does not need to pay back the party RM5 million and Lee confirms that Anwar assured him of this three hours before he tendered his resignation.
But then a bond is a bond. The bond that you signed says you must pay back the party RM5 million if you resign. It does not say you are exempted from paying back the party RM5 million if you resign at the request of the party or at the request of Anwar Ibrahim.
We scream about justice and fair play. We scream about honouring our commitments and obligations. We scream about transparency and accountability. But when we do something that is supposed to help Anwar become Prime Minister, we can ignore all these ‘values’ and allow the end to justify the means.
Okay, the question is not how much Lee was spared (RM5 million in penalty) when he resigned. We know it is RM5 million. The question is how much was he ‘compensated’ for resigning? That is the more relevant question.
Anyone want to hazard a guess?
When I said we must not only scream ABU (anything but Umno) but must also oppose Umno culture in the opposition, this is exactly what I am talking about. The Kajang by-election is testimony to what I have been saying all along.
