YeinJee's Asian Journal

Batu Gajah incumbent MP Fong Po Kuan has decided to retract her earlier decision to not defend her seat at the 12th General Election.

While the DAP and Fong’s supporters are singing their joy… I have different opinion about this; this is simply a huge joke from my point of view. I don’t like people who flip-flop with their decisions, and I believe I am not the only one.

People might argue that Po Kuan actually shows that she is willing to listen to the plea of her supporters, which should be respectable… but shouldn’t she be gathering the opinions BEFORE she made the decision to quit?

Her decision to u-turn might be a good thing for DAP and the people, but if there were actually rooms for her to change her mind, shouldn’t she be thinking extra carefully before making the first call?

Did she chat with the party leaders before calling it quits? Was it the last or only option she had back then? Whom had she consulted before making the call? Did she even had a good reason to quit at the first place?

If you are working in a corporate, and one of your colleague decided to quit and then retracted his/her call… you would know that this kind of gimmick is not generally popular. Most people would still give a “welcome back” greeting, but only a few really meant it.

Political field should see no exception… what she did was simply immature. She did apologised for this, but damage has already been done, for both Fong Po Kuan and DAP. Questions are, how bad the damage is, and how forgiving Batu Gajah’s voters are?

Batu Gajah Member of Parliament, Fong Po Kuan has throw a bomb on DAP’s camp on last Saturday (Feb 16), announcing that she won’t be contesting for the upcoming election.

Fong didn’t state the reason for her decision, but in an email sent to DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, which was distributed during Saturday’s press conference… she mentioned that the development of internal party events in DAP Perak over the last few years has made it impossible for her to continue serving effectively, efficiently and wholeheartedly.

The public are holding mixed response about her decision. While her supporters are trying to persuade her to change her decision, some quarters are questioning her maturity to announce her decision when the General Election is in a matter of days.

Personally, I think we would have to respect Fong’s decision. Selfishness is not a question here, she is entitled to make the best decision for her personal interest rather than for the mass… it is just being human.

Off course it would be great if she could have find a better timing to announce her decision, perhaps a few months earlier… but it could be that she has just made up her mind recently. We can’t really tell without knowing the real situation.

On side note, DAP should just let go of this issue and move on. Forget about persuading Fong to rethink her decision… she already made the call, and it probably would show more immaturity if she decides to flip-flop in the end.

Besides, giving too much importance to Fong actually exposed that DAP might be lacking in quality candidates, which is probably a fact… but the DAP leaders certainly don’t need to endorse the weakness by over-focusing on getting back Fong.

My best wishes to Fong Po Kuan for her future endeavour, and hope that DAP could find a good candidate to replace the void.

[Update Feb 22] Fong retracted her decision and will contest in coming election.

Taiwan is infamous for their occasional brawl in parliament meeting… but no worries, Malaysia is catching up.

Just a week ago Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Environment, S. Sothinathan, has verbally challenged female MP Fong Po Kuan for a fight, but this time a Kelantan state assemblyman has decided to turn words into action instead.

It happens at Kelantan State Assembly on Nov 27 when Nozula Mat Diah (BN – Paloh) assaulted Mohd Zaki Ibrahim (PAS – Kelaboran) after being ‘provoked’.

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