What you were never told about the scrapping of the Penang election proposal
The Third Force
Last Sunday, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng announced that his party had dropped plans to prematurely dissolve the Penang state assembly. According to him, the idea was scrubbed by the party on the basis that its coalition partner, PKR, did not see eye-to-eye with it on the matter.
“Following the disagreement of PKR to a state general election, the DAP will not proceed with proposals for a state general election,” he said.
Two days earlier, PKR deputy president Dato’ Seri Azmin Ali stated that his party needed more time to discuss its options. Azmin’s statement followed that of his president, Datin Seri Wan Azizah, who expressed reservations over the DAP proposal, saying that PKR wasn’t convinced with what the DAP’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) had put on the table.
For those of you who aren’t privy to these developments, the back and forth between the DAP and PKR on the snap poll proposal began just a few days after criminal charges were read to Guan Eng by the Penang High Court. Three weeks later, on the 23rd of July 2016, the DAP secretary-general, who is also the Chief Minister (CM) of Penang, had this to say:
“Everyone knows that Lim cannot be saved. Even though Lim cannot be saved, the state can still be saved, so that is why we need the state election.”
Not many realise the gravity of that statement, particularly when it is read through the lenses of law. The Penang CM literally passed a guilty verdict on himself in public. The onus is now for him to explain to the High Court how and why his public plea differed from the one he made to the court on the 30th of June 2016. If he fails to do so, he could be held in contempt of court for having entered a false plea.
More than that, Guan Eng needs to explain to the court his public outburst despite knowing that his case was in litigation. Of course, the burden of proof on these matters would only rest on his shoulders should a police report be lodged against him on counts of attempting to subvert his trial.
Which is why, last Friday, I wrote an article urging Tunku Abdul Aziz bin Tunku Ibrahim, a former DAP member, to lodge a police report against Guan Eng for what I believe was an attempt by the CM to subvert legal proceedings that have commenced against him (refer http://www.malaysia-today.net/i-urge-tunku-aziz-to-lodge-a-police-report-against-lim-guan-eng/).
My plea to the Tunku was triggered by a statement the CM had issued a day before, where he publically challenged the prosecution’s charges against him. By doing so, Guan Eng undermined the authority of the court by forming opinions that were highly injurious against the ruling coalition. As such, he tampered with due process and tainted the prosecution’s case in the eyes of the Malaysian law.
In the same press release, the CM also spoke of a conspiracy by the ruling coalition to “finish him off by hook or by crook.” He went so far as to imply that the government had abused its power to “conduct exhaustive investigations on the Penang state government’s public works projects” with intent to incriminate him. The onus is therefore also for him to prove to the court that such a conspiracy by the ruling coalition does exist.
Now, all I’ve done so far is to report what had either been published by the mainstream media or by Malaysia Today in recent days. What I have yet to tell you is the reason why Guan Eng floated the idea of a snap election in the first place. And we’re talking the real reason here – which is the same reason that ultimately consigned the whole snap election bullshit to the rubbish bin.
But first, you need to understand that the CEC is split into two distinct factions. As a matter of fact, the split took place in 2008, when Guan Eng convened an emergency meeting right after it became clear that the DAP had swept Penang from Barisan Nasional (BN) in a landslide. CEC members aligned with Chow Kon Yeow, who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Tanjong since 1999, were utterly disgusted when Guan Eng literally performed a ‘coup’ within the Penang DAP chapter to position himself as CM in-waiting.
Over the months that followed, those aligned with Chow grew in numbers both outside and within the CEC. Then, following the 13th general election, members of team-A (those who favoured Chow) began to outnumber those from team-B (those who favoured Guan eng). Chow supporters secretly organised demonstrations to demand that Guan Eng return to his home base in Malacca. The CM ignored those calls despite knowing that team-A was getting stronger and more desperate.
Guan Eng was not the least bit intimidated by the CEC, simply because he believed that Chow would never betray him. As a matter of fact, so did Guan Eng’s father, Lim Kit Siang. However, the duo was so far positioned from reality, it never fails to astonish me how they stood oblivious to the fact that Chow was pissed off at being passed over in 2008 and had never ‘forgiven’ Guan Eng. Their ignorance is about to cost Guan Eng the ‘rights to the party ownership’.
Chow seemed to play his cards well – sources reveal that he may have played them so well, both Lim senior and Lim junior were smitten by his seeming loyalty to the greater agenda – which, as many say, is to ensure that the DAP remains firmly in the clutches of the Lim dynasty.
However, soon after the Penang High Court drew the gavel on Guan Eng, I am told both he and his father discovered that Chow was not all he cut himself out to be. In essence, Chow was a betrayer who would sell Guan Eng down the river or even in the black market if he had to. Put simply, Chow hated Guan Eng and was only pretending to be his close friend. Well, at least that’s how the story seems to go. And judging from ‘insider tips’ I have received, all of this seems to be true.
Anyway, both Guan Eng and Kit Siang are said to have come up with the snap poll idea owing to ‘Chow’s infidelity’. By prematurely dissolving the state assembly, Guan Eng intended to prove to the CEC that the people of Penang still regarded him with esteem despite the criminal charges he was faced with. He would then tell the CEC that there was no need for Chow to be made CM until such a time that the court found him guilty.
Rest assured, it is not just the DAP that is split. As I’ve repeatedly stated in the past, PKR is so heavily divided, one can only imagine how the party keeps all of its acts together. On one end of its playing field is Dato’ Seri Azmin Ali, who has former premier Mahathir Mohammad firmly by his side. On the other end, we have Wan Azizah and her team of circus clowns, and not to mention, her daughter.
Now, while Azmin and Guan Eng discussed the possibility of holding simultaneous elections in Penang and Selangor together with Nurul Izzah and Saifuddin Nasution, team-A (those aligned with Chow) and team-Wan Azizah were said to have secretly discussed sabotaging Azmin’s and Guan Eng’s plans. Rumour is, an agreement was reached when Wan Azizah gave team-A the green light to demand that Guan Eng make way for Chow to become the next CM.
Both the senior and junior Lim’s may have gotten word of the conspiracy. At least, that’s the claim by a certain DAP insider. That may be one reason why Guan Eng came out to declare that he supported Chow to be the next CM “should anything happen” to him. He wanted to buy himself time. But that isn’t the main reason leading to the abortion of election plans, though it most certainly was a contributing factor.
Incidentally, the same source also claimed that the dissolution of the state assembly was to coincide with another important event ‘at national level’ which he refused to dabble into. Since I have not been told the exact nature of the so called event, I do not wish to dabble in it either, although, I do have a clue what he was referring to.
That said, the main reason that prompted the scrapping of the snap-poll idea had to do with the request I put in for Tunku Aziz to lodge a police report last Friday. Now, Guan Eng knows better than to mess with the Tunku, who probably knows more than anyone would wish to know about the ‘little’ secrets several DAP leaders have hidden in their cribs.
In the event that a report was lodged by the Tunku, Guan Eng knew that the CEC would never agree to his nomination as CM after the election. That was when Guan Eng realised that the snap poll idea was a no-go.
Thereafter, he and Azmin staged joint press-releases to assure their respective teams that the abortion had been mutually agreed upon and was not a sign of discordance between them.
Notwithstanding the above, sources closely aligned with Azmin’s innermost circle blew the whistle on a conspiracy by Mahathir to use the Penang state poll as a referendum against Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak. Mahathir, who has credited to his cause of destroying BN by March next year a whopping five billion ringgit, is said to have committed some of that dough towards the opposition’s electoral machinery.
Mahathir’s goal was to reverse the positive impact the Sarawak, Kuala Kangsar and Sungai Besar elections had on BN and the MCA. Sources in the know reveal that Mahathir had planned to work closely with two MCA life-members – one from Penang and the other, from KL – to ensure that Chinese voters did not swing towards the MCA the way they did in Sarawak, Kuala Kangsar and Sungai Besar.
Now, I am not sure if Guan Eng is aware of this. But sources indicate that Wan Azizah was, or at the very least, had suspected that Mahathir had something planned for Penang in the event a snap election was called for. And that is one reason why her team struck a deal with Chow’s team. We’ll talk about the other reason in an upcoming article.
Oh, and one more thing – it is still my express desire that a police report be lodged against Guan Eng on suspicion that he had attempted to subvert his trial.
