Johor Baharu, Dec 27 – Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong is tipped to be the leading candidate to take over the post of Johor DAP chairman from Dr Boo Cheng Hau at the state party elections next month.
Taman Nesa DAP Branch chairman P. Kogilavani said DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang and his son, Lim Guan Eng, who is the party secretary-general, want Chin Tong to helm the Johor DAP.
“Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng have figured out everything to enable Liew Chin Tong to be the new Johor DAP chairman,” she told Bernama.
She said Kit Siang and Guan Eng saw Chin Tong as an individual who could help realise the party’s desire to wrest Johor from the Barisan Nasional in the next general election.
Kogilavani also said that the good relationship between Kit Siang and Guan Eng and Chin Tong was a reason why they wanted the Kluang MP to be the Johor DAP chairman.
She said Chin Tong, who was the DAP’s political education director and party strategist, was more acceptable to Kit Siang and Guan Eng than Boo.
Chin Tong had served under Guan Eng in Penang when the latter was the Bukit Bendera MP after the 12th general election in 2008.
Kogilavani said it was known that Kit Siang and Guan Eng did not have a good relationship with Boo, the two-term assemblyman for Skudai.
Boo, a medical practitioner, has been the Johor DAP chairman for three terms and had expressed the desire to contest the Gelang Patah parliamentary seat in the 13th general election last May before the DAP decided on Kit Siang as the candidate.
Last week, former Senai assemblyman Ong Kow Meng, who is Johor DAP vice-chairman, and former Bentayan assemblyman Gwee Tong Hiang asked Boo to honour his pledge to step down as Johor DAP chairman.
The two Johor DAP leaders wanted a younger leader of more calibre to take over from Boo and named Chin Tong and Kulai MP Teo Nie Ching as the likely substitute.
– Bernama
