KOTA KINABALU - Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) supreme council has never passed the resolution of ‘no contest for the party president and deputy president posts’.
LDP vice president cum Youth leader Chin Shu Ying, who is aligned to Datuk Teo Chee Kang’s faction, said the supreme council meeting had only passed the resolution to ‘support the leadership of Datuk Liew Vui Keong and Senator Datuk Chin Su Phin’.
However, Liew has kept insisting that it was a no-contest resolution for the top two party posts and used it as a reason to sack the supreme council members, Chin said at a press conference yesterday.
In the supreme council meeting on June 9 this year, Chin said Liew, who chaired the meeting in his capacity as party president, was anxious to propose a motion to have a no-contest for the party president and deputy president posts, and the motion was discussed in the meeting.
He said a party leader from Sandakan supported the motion, but Lim Kai Min from Sandakan and Chia Butf Shan @ Chiang Bhat Sing from Kudat did not agree to it because under the party constitution, all positions in the party are open for contest to eligible party members.
After discussion, the supreme council decided to pass the resolution to ‘support the leadership of Liew and Su Phin’.
It was also said in the meeting, the supreme council should accept any party leaders who have the support from party members to contest for any posts.
On that day, two vice presidents, namely Datuk Pang Yuk Ming and Datuk Lim Ming Hoo, were absent from the meeting, but there were at least four to five supreme council members who did not raise their hands to support the resolution, including Chin himself.
Chin stressed that in reality, the supposed no-contest resolution was never passed by the supreme council on June 9.
However, Liew insisted that the supreme council had passed the resolution of ‘no contest’, and used that as an excuse to remove Teo and Su Phin as secretary general and deputy president, and even suspended the party membership of 30 supreme council members and division chairmen.
“We have never bad-mouthed Liew in our press conferences, on what grounds he claimed that we were destroying the party?”
Chin said Liew’s action in removing Teo and Su Phin from their respective party posts was a total disregard for the party constitution and an abuse of power.
He said he had received a letter faxed to him by the ‘new secretary general’ Loretto S Padua Jr appointed by Liew yesterday to inform him of Chin’s removal from all party posts.
“The funny thing is that the letter is dated September 9, 2013, but the date of fax is June 2, 2007.”
Chin reiterated that Liew’s action in suspending the party membership of Su Phin, Teo and 30 supreme council members and division chairmen has violated the party constitution.
This is because the party constitution has provided that a party member whose membership is to be revoked must have a complaint filed against the person, and the matter will be referred to the any Disciplinary Committee. The Disciplinary Committee will then give a chance for the member to defend him/herself before making the final decision.
“In our case, the Disciplinary Committee has not received any disciplinary complaints against us, how can he suspend our party membership?”
Chin said Liew had sacked members from their party posts and appointed another six members prior to holding the presidential council meeting on August 30.
Together with Loretto, Liew had just enough quorum of eight persons to hold the meeting.
“Among the eight presidential council members, Liew is the only party president elected from the previous party election while the six others were not appointed based on election or preference of party members. How can such a presidential council suspend 30 supreme council members who were elected by the party members?”
On the other hand, Chin refuted Liew’s statement that their faction was acting like pirates.
“We are crew members on the ship, how can we be hijackers?” he said, adding that Liew has also described Teo’s faction as rotten smelly fish.
Chin said the 60,000 members in LDP had hoped that the captain would lead them to a better future.
However, seven years has passed but the captain only cared about his personal interest rather than the interest of the crew, which was why the crew decided to remove the captain.
“We want to protect the crew members on the ship, that’s why we decided to remove the captain!”
Chin continued to say that Liew had warned members against acting forcibly, but who had terminated and suspended party memberships in the first place?
He hoped that Liew would reflect upon himself. In the General Election in 2008, Liew stood as a candidate in Sandakan.
“If it weren’t for Datuk Chin Su Phin, who led our brothers at the West Coast to camp out in Sandakan for two weeks to assist Liew in the election campaign, would Liew have the chance to be elected as member of parliament and subsequently became a federal deputy minister?”
“As our brothers were battling outside during the election campaign, Liew only hid in the hotel room and prayed to God to let him win.
Chin said Liew once said to let party members decide who will win or lose, this has always been the request of Teo’s faction.
“Why does Liew lack the courage to face a fair and just party election, why did he weed out leaders who are eligible to contest?”
Chin contended that even if Teo or Su Phin did not challenge Liew, if it were Pang or Chin himself who challenged Liew, Liew would have lost as well. But the point is whether Liew has the courage to face a fair party election.
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