No backstabbing, but no rubber-stamping either, PKR rep tells Guan Eng

Legislators are not backstabbers, neither are they rubber stamps, says Kebun Bunga assemblyman Cheah Kah Peng, who was removed from a Penang government-linked company (GLC) over his stand on an opposition motion in the legislature. The PKR rep, who recently lost his directorship in the Penang Hill Corporation (PHC) after he abstained from voting against a Barisan Nasional motion on land reclamation last November at the state legislative assembly meeting, said continuous attacks against him would not stop him from asking questions. “State assemblymen are elected by the people to help scrutinise all government administration, be it federal, state or council, which we were doing and continue to do so. “I just want to ask is it wrong to defend the interest of Penang, to ask for public hearings on reclaiming projects involving our seafront land. “It is wrong to ask the government and developers to clarify and account for the seafront land?” he told a press conference today at Komtar. Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, who is chairman of PHC, had criticised Cheah and his four other PKR colleagues over the abstention last November. Lim's party DAP were in loggerheads over the controversy at the state assembly. The spat between the two parties was revived when Cheah was removed from the GLC. Another PKR rep Ong Chin Wen was also removed from his position in a Penang GLC. The DAP secretary-general defended the removals, saying that ‘backstabbing’ was unacceptable in the state government or any organisation. Asked if he had gone to see Lim to explain, he said he was not invited by Lim; and even when they had met at functions, the issue about the abstention was never talked about. “I never got any invitation to go see him. He could have said he wanted to see me,” he said. Cheah said it had been a difficult three months for the five PKR reps and one DAP rep who voted in support of the BN motion but retracted it later. On whether there were orders from higher up in his party to abstain from voting against the motion, Cheah said he made his decision based on his conscience. “I cannot speak for the others,” he said, adding that it was also a misrepresentation that he and Ong were ringleaders in the abstention, and an absurd suggestion that they were waging war with fellow PKR rep deputy chief minister I Datuk Rashid Hasnon. Cheah also said he disagreed with an argument by Lim that reviewing new reclamation projects which had yet to be approved would bankrupt the state, calling it misleading and incorrect. Cheah said their abstention had prompted a series of public hearings and consultation to engage Penangites and help them understand land swaps and seafront developments, which was a good start. – February 24, 2016.