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DAP urges DAP Parliamentary candidate for Kota Melaka Sim Tong Him to publicly withdraw as an independent candidate for the Kota Laksamana state seat as well as declaring full support for DAP official state candidate Lai Kuen Ban. By putting himself as an independent candidate for Kota Laksamana against Lai Kuen Ban, Sim is doing not only the party a great disservice but also set back the hopes of Melaka voters who had wanted to see a change of government in Malaysia from BN to PR.
There was no communication whatsoever from Sim to the party leadership that he wanted to contest in Kota Laksamana state seat as an independent. Clearly this shocking action of a DAP parliamentary candidate also standing as an independent candidate against the official DAP candidate in the state seat has brought shame to DAP. Such an act would invite automatic expulsion from the party as stated by DAP Deputy National Chairman Tan Kok Wai.
However in view of Sim’s years in the party, the DAP central leadership is still willing to give him an opportunity to correct this grievous error by publicly withdrawing from the state contest and giving full support to Lai. This would enable Sim to concentrate on winning the Kota Melaka parliamentary seats and all the state seats in his constituency.
The DAP Melaka state committee including Sim had opposed the Central Executive Committee(CEC) 4-man candidate selection committee’s recommendation to nominate a medical doctor and church elder, Dr Wong Fort Ping to contest in the Kota Laksamana state seat. Sim had mentioned some wild allegations against Dr Wong, which were completely unfounded. DAP Melaka Chair Goh Leong San even threatened to close down the election operations center if Dr Wong was selected. Goh was willing to accept anyone except Dr Wong.
To avoid Goh carrying out his threat to close down the election operations center, Sdr Lim Kit Siang had called up Sim to propose a compromise candidate, Sdr Lai Kuen Ban. This was finally agreed to by Sim. For that reason, the party fails to see why Sim is behaving so irrationally in opposing Lai Kuen Ban’s candidacy when Sim had earlier agreed with Sdr Lim Kit Siang on Lai’s candidacy.
DAP hopes that Sim can quickly correct this grave error so that the party can move forward to persuade voters to replace BN in Melaka. Failure to do so would only delight and benefit BN by making it more difficult for PR to retain existing and win new seats.
Presently DAP refuses to entertain suspicion and rumours that Sim’s shocking action in contesting under DAP in a parliamentary seat but as an independent in a state seat is somehow related to some grand design by BN to sabotage DAP’s election campaign. Sim Tong Him just can not contest under a DAP ticket for the parliamentary seat of Kota Melaka and at the same time contest as an independent state candidate for Kota Laksamana. Sim can not have one leg in the DAP boat and the other leg in a non-DAP boat.
LIM GUAN ENG
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