By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Penang on Friday, June 29, 1990:
Advice MCA leaders not to drug the DAP into their internal power struggle
I want to advise MCA Ministers, Deputy Ministers and leaders not to drag the DAP into their internal power struggle.
MCA Vice President, Datuk Kok Wee Kiat, yesterday announced that Datuk Seri Dr. Ling Liong Sik should not continue as MCA President as he will give the DAP too many “bullets” and “issues” to be used against the MCA in the next general elections.
The impending power struggle between the Liong Sik and Lee Kim Sai factions had been described as a battle between ‘justice’ and ‘self-interest’ by the Kim Sai faction, meaning that the Kim Sai faction stands fro ‘justice’ and the Liong Sik faction stands for ‘self-interest’.
Everybody knows why Kok Wee Kiat has declared against Liong Sik. Kok Wee Kiat was initially in the Liong Sik camp, but he could never forgive Liong SIk blocked his chance to become full Minister to replace Chan Siang Sun.
Instead, Liong Sik picked a comparatively junior MCA provincial leader, Datuk Lim Ah Lek, to be candidate for Bentong by-election and catapulted him into the Cabinet to become Minister for Human Resources – leaving Wee Kiat to seethe with fury at being blocked from becoming full Minister.
If Wee Kiat wants openly to declare against Liong Sik, let him state clearly his real reason, that he wants to be full Minister, instead of dragging the DAP into the picture.
The same applies to Lee Kim Sai. In an interview with a Chinese press (China Press), Kim Sai said he knew nothing about the booklet “The Truth Is Out” put out by the MCA National Publicity Bureau, until he read my criticism of the booklet as telling a pack of lies.
Nobody is going to believe that Kim Sai could be so ‘last to know, last to be conscious’ to the extent that he has to depend on me for information about what is going on inside the MCA headquarters.
If Kim Sai and his followers want to declare open war against Liong Sik and his faction, and to go for the MCA Presidency, it is their business. After all, everybody knows that the Liong Sik –Kim Sai fight is a battle between ‘Liong Sik faction self-interest’ and ‘Kim Sai faction self-interest’ and that there is no ‘justice’ involved. What the two factions are really fighting for are for the Ministerial, Deputy Ministerial positions and other perks of office for the faction in power – which have nothing to do with ‘justice’ for the people.