Guan Eng tells another lie – the mother of them all
The Third Force
Yesterday, the Chief Minister (CM) of Penang, Lim Guan Eng, attempted to veer public attention away from a very enigmatic and ambiguous decision he had recently made. Rather than come clean on the eleventh-hour u-turn on the snap election proposal, the CM went straight into uncharted territory and began talking about the works minister and how he did not know what he was doing.
“The state government finds it difficult to grasp your logic, sir, when you asked for the feasibility study (and structural design report for the undersea tunnel). It (the request) has nothing to do with the third bridge proposal.”
That was what he said. It’s like listening to a cow cluck. You’d expect the cow to moo, but then, it suddenly clucks.
Well, since the CM seems heavily inclined towards logic, perhaps he ought to shed some light – or rather, logic – to help us understand why he found it necessary to scrap the election proposal in the first place. So let us start from the very beginning, and this time, make an attempt to keep the works minister out of the picture.
Last Sunday, Guan Eng announced that his party had dropped plans to prematurely dissolve the Penang state assembly on account of a disagreement it had with PKR. According to him, the idea was scrubbed by the party on the basis that its coalition partner did not see eye-to-eye with it on the matter.
Now that was half the truth, which essentially, is a whole lie.
In order to understand why it was a lie, you will first need to know the extent of discord and conflict that the DAP is now experiencing. To begin with, the party and its Central Executive Committee (CEC) are currently split into two factions – those who are aligned with Chow Kon Yeow (team-A), and those who are loyal to Guan Eng (team-B). The split took place in 2008 and has been widening ever since. Over the past three years, members of team-A have outnumbered those from team-B by quite a significant margin.
Now, Guan Eng and his father, Lim Kit Siang, have for years believed that Chow would never think of betraying them. They’re not to blame. I mean, all these years, Chow seemed to pander to their every whim and prejudice like nobody’s business. That said, both Lim senior and Lim junior were so far exiled from reality, they virtually hadn’t a clue that a coup plot within the party was in the works by persons aligned with Chow.
The truth is, Chow, being a Member of Parliament for the Tanjong constituency since 1999, had never forgiven Guan Eng for passing him over in 2008 for the role of CM. Tensions simmered to a boil among Chow’s supporters when Guan Eng stayed on as CM past the 13th general election despite there being calls for him not to do so.
Soon after the Penang High Court charged for graft, Guan Eng was given a free pass by the CEC to continue serving as CM. However, that ‘pass’ was agreed upon by Chow’s supporters within the CEC only to allow the dust to settle on the CM’s arrest. Emotions were running so high, team-A did not want to risk making it look like a coup plot by calling for Guan Eng’s resignation.
But there were already whispers.
Sources reveal that Guan Eng came to know of Chow’s ‘infidelity’ hours after charges were read to him by the High Court. It is then that the idea of prematurely dissolving the state assembly popped up. It seems that Guan Eng had intended to bring an ‘outsider’ – Anthony Loke Siew Fook – to contest a ‘DAP safe seat’ in Penang. The plan was to nominate Anthony as the next CM of Penang in the likelihood that the DAP registered a majority representation within the state’s legislature.
Can Guan Eng come out publically to declare if the above is true?
But it wouldn’t matter if he did, because those plans – if they had existed – went straight into the rubbish bin where they truly belonged. In fact, the election proposal began to crumble the minute Datin’ Seri Wan Azizah came out secretly to form a pact with persons who were aligned with Chow. Just for the record, PKR is itself split into two teams – those aligned with its deputy president, Dato’ Seri Azmin Ali, and those who are said to be loyal to Wan Azizah.
While Guan Eng discussed the possibility of holding simultaneous polls in Penang and Selangor together with Nurul Izzah, Azmin and Saifuddin Nasution, team-Wan Azizah secretly discussed sabotaging Guan Eng’s and Azmin’s election plans. According to DAP insiders, Wan Azizah gave Chow’s supporters the green light to publically demand that Guan Eng make way for Chow to become the next CM.
Rumour is, Guan eng got word of the intended sabotage and immediately came out to declare his support for Chow as the next CM. He knew that Chow’s supporters within the CEC outnumbered his and did not want to risk being ousted before he could figure out the next course of action.
Then, last Friday, right after I had issued a public plea for Tunku Abdul Aziz bin Tunku Ibrahim to lodge a police report against Guan Eng, the CM began to have another think. The reason I picked the Tunku is simple – Guan Eng knows that the Tunku has the clout to trigger protests by persons aligned with Chow that would influence decisions made by the CEC.
As expected, Guan Eng chickened out and aborted plans for a snap poll. Those plans are now in the dustbin together with alleged plans to make Anthony Loke the next CM of Penang. Guan Eng knows that should a police report have been lodged by the Tunku, the CEC would never agree to his nomination as CM in the event an election is held.
As a matter of fact, even if a report is lodged anytime soon by the Tunku, or even me for that matter, CEC members favouring Chow would not hesitate to force a resignation from Guan Eng. There is more to this story though, which you can read all about it by clicking the link below:
Now, I am positive that Guan Eng had read the article above and will probably be reading this. I am sure that after reading these articles, he will think, “Well, at least this ‘Third Force guy’ has helped me avert attention from the other reason why it was urgent for me to call off plans for a snap election.”
If that is the case, here’s the deal – I hereby give Guan Eng 24 hours to come out and ‘confess’ to the public the true reason – as they say, the mother of them all – why he decided to scrap the snap poll idea. Either he comes out to tell the truth, or I will.
The ball is in your court now, Guan Eng. The rest of you, stay tuned.
