DAP candidate crisis ends with a twist

THE drama in DAP over its selection of election candidates is coming to an end but it will be an ending with a dramatic twist.

Liew Chin Tong, the man at the centre of the candidacy controversy, has been directed by his party top guns to contest the Johor polls and lead the DAP campaign.

The former deputy minister had been adamant about not contesting a state seat and had relegated the election chief post to his state deputy and Kulai MP Teo Nie Ching.

But he is the state DAP chairman and his party has decided that the general cannot stay on the sidelines, he has to lead in the battlefield.

Moreover, he was the brains behind moving big names in DAP to contest in Johor and creating the wow-factor that led to the fall of the Umno fortress.

Yet, in the run-up to the Johor polls, at a time when the party needed him most, he had declined to step up to the plate.

The boyish-looking 44-year-old has yet to say yes or no, but going by what national organising secretary Anthony Loke told a news portal, it appears that Liew may have little choice but to abide.

Loke stressed numerous times that it was a directive and order from the top.

This episode has been an ironic life lesson that you do not always get what you want.

Liew who was so reluctant to go for a state seat is being pressured to contest while his adversary Tan Hong Pin who badly wanted to defend his seat in Skudai has to make way for someone new.

The party has unveiled almost all the candidates and Liew’s candidature will probably be the final announcement.

The storm has passed. The candidate list so far comprises mostly incumbents some of whom were moved to another seat and a sprinkling of new faces.

Liew was not wrong in describing the “empty chair protest” in Skudai that triggered the candidacy controversy as a fiasco and an unnecessary controversy.

He said it was not the DAP culture to mobilise protests over candidacy.

The protest erupted following rumours that at least five incumbents aligned to Skudai incumbent Tan would be dropped.

Actually only two would be dropped but rumours rule when facts are not readily available.

Moreover, almost every political party introduces at least 30% new faces every election and leaders cannot be blamed for picking their allies as candidates because that is politics.

Liew will go into the state election with quite limited goodwill after what has happened.

But he is skilled at messaging and has released campaign videos, outlining the challenges ahead, urging Johoreans to treat this state election as an opportunity to reset national politics.

Pakatan Harapan’s battlecry of “Bangkit Johor” has such a great soundbite but it is going to be a terribly difficult election for DAP and its partner in Pakatan for several reasons.

The opposition is not united like in 2018 whereas Umno has managed to get its act together and is determined to regain control of its fortress.

DAP is no longer held up on a pedestal by the Chinese.

The support is still there but it will not be as easy to sweep up Chinese votes like before and at least three of its seats are in danger.

All those TikTok videos urging the 170,000 Johoreans working in Singapore to register as postal voters have also had limited effect. Reliable sources said only around 2,000 of them have registered with the Election Commission as of last week.

There is a lot resting on Liew’s shoulders.

DAP elder Lim Kit Siang has been silent throughout the whole affair but there is no doubt he played his part behind the scenes to resolve the crisis.

Lim had gone all out during the Johor DAP election last year to help Liew and his team defeat Tan’s line-up.

He had credited Liew for taking the party from a “grocery store” in Johor to a “hypermarket”, alluding to how the party had grown from a fringe opposition party to being part of the state government in 2018.

Liew is a devoted ally of the powerful Lim family and “Lao Da” or elder brother as Lim is known in the party, wanted Liew to be the boss of the DAP hypermarket.

The Chinese media has speculated that Liew is likely to contest in Perling in the southern end of Johor which is a nest of Pakatan-controlled seats.

Perling is a mixed seat which DAP won with a majority of 19,533 votes.

The Johor polls will have bearing on Liew’s political future.

The pressure is on him to maintain Johor DAP’s status as a hypermarket. People in his party do not want to go back to being a grocery store or even a mini-market.