PPP - end of the road?

I think the days of PPP boss, M. Kayveas, are almost over.

The first sign of the Barisan Nasional’s disenchantment with the president of the PPP has been their recent and deliberate snubbing of him when the Coalition appointed Bukit Gantang MP Tan Lian Hoe as the coalition’s chairman in his (Kayveas) backyard.

Gerakan president Dr Lim Keng Yaik revealed that Mentri Besar and Perak Barisan chief Mohd Tajol Rosli Ghazali appointed Tan as the Barisan head in Beruas.

Kayveas is currently occupying the Taiping seat which was previously in the hands of the Gerakan since 1974. Prior to that, the MP for Taiping was Gerakan former deputy president Kerk Choo Teng who held that seat for three terms from 1990.

At the last polls in 2004, the BN gave the Taiping seat to Kayveas, who threw a humongous tantrum when he was given another seat which he wasn't too confident of.

Even then, Taiping wasn't a safe seat for him. The 2004 combined votes for the DAP and PKR in Taiping were more than what Kayveas had received, though that didn’t necessarily mean, had the DAP or PKR not contested in a 3-corner fight, Kayveas would have lost. A vote for, say, the PKR wouldn’t automatically translate into a vote for the DAP if PKR stayed out, and vice versa. But he certainly will face daunting odds if he is allowed to stand there again.

Recently, Perak Gerakan chief Chang Ko Youn stated he wants the Taiping to be return to Gerakan, based on a purported agreement at the last polls. In the so-called agreement, Kayveas was originally named to contest in Bukit Gantang.

But a Chinese-language newspaper reported that Kayveas has threatened to contest as an independent candidate at the next election if the Taiping seat were to be taken away from him and returned to Gerakan.

However, Dr Lim was either evasive or diplomatic when he said only the Barisan supreme council could decide on the issues. He said: “I don’t know whether we will contest in Taiping or Bukit Gantang (at the next general election). But the time is not here yet. So don’t speculate or debate on it.”

At the beginning of this year, Kayveas had offended many BN leaders when he called for the 9 BN leaders including Ong Ka Ting, Lim Keng Yaik and Samy Vellu to be sacked from the cabinet after they withdrew their memo to the PM on a religious issue.

In my posting King Sabo I did warn (Kayveas) that “he’s a bit unwise asking for them to be sacked because his Taiping seat is very much dependent on Gerakan’s goodwill and support."

"If we remember, in the last election, he was crying out loud that the other parties had ignored and not helped his campaign. Showing childish tantrum against Lim Keng Yaik may be foolish if he wants to retain his Taiping seat.”

Additionally I see the PPP not adding any value to the BN, with Kayveas unwanted on both sides of the political fence. So I suppose AAB no longer has much use for him or the PPP. I woudln't be surprised if AAB cuts him loose or ignores him in the next pre-selection, and WTF can the PPP do? The once-powerful PPP is not even a pale shadow of its old self; nowadays it’s just a sore pimple on the BN’s backside.

In Humpty Dumpty blasted King Sabo I wrote: “I dare say that PM Abdullah Badawi must be wishing secretly the PPP would do the obliging step and commit political seppuku or at least make itself disappear into thin air."

"In each pre-election, the PPP stood out like a sore thumb for Badawi and previously, Mahathir, when it came to the difficult task of distributing the seats among the major players. They must have found that trying to factor in the PPP was an annoying nuisance. The last election saw Kayveas throwing a tantrum when he was thrown an iffy constituency."

If Kayveas so much as carries out his threat to stand as an independent in Taiping, he’s toast. But then, the poor bloke is virtually dead meat anyway. I'll miss his clown-ish ways.

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Cowards & Clowns in Parliament