KUALA LUMPUR, 12 Sept 2008: Five Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) members, led by its information chief, Tian Chua, flew to Taipei today in an attempt "to meet" Barisan Nasional (BN) Members of Parliament (MPs) who are currently on an agricultural study tour in Taiwan.
The other PKR members are Selangor state executive councillor Elizabeth Wong, Kuantan MP and party election bureau deputy head Fuziah Salleh, Machang MP and party strategic director Saifuddin Nasution and supreme council member Low Chee Cheong.
"We hope to catch up with them on the agricultural tour," Tian Chua told Bernama by phone just before boarding a China Airlines flight at the KL International Airport at 2.20pm.
The decision to go to Taiwan was made at PKR’s political bureau meeting chaired by party supremo Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on 11 Sept.
Forty-one BN MPs left for Taiwan on 8 Sept on the tour, which is scheduled to end on 17 Sept, a day after Anwar’s initial 16 Sept-deadline to wrest control of the federal government.
However, Pakatan Rakyat issued a statement on the night of 11 Sept, jointly signed by PKR secretary-general Datuk Salehuddin Hashim, DAP political education director Loke Siew Fook and PAS secretary-general Datuk Kamarudin Jaffar, saying that the coalition’s plan to form a new government on 16 Sept might be delayed.
This was due to several reasons, among them, the government backbenchers’ current study trip to Taiwan, they said. – Bernama
