Updated 6pm on 22 June 2009
KUALA LUMPUR, 22 June 2009: Suspended Gerakan vice-president Huan Cheng Guan is not discounting the possibility of joining the Opposition even as he charged that his suspension violated Gerakan’s constitution.
Asked by reporters whether he would consider joining the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) following his three-year suspension, Huan said that he was committed to the Barisan Nasional (BN).
Huan (Source: batukawan.com.my) “I don’t think I will join PR, unless they (Gerakan) push me to the wall, and I have nowhere to go,” Huan told reporters in Parliament today.
Huan was suspended by the Gerakan central working committee (CWC) on 20 June for openly attacking the party and its leadership.
He had declared on 29 May that he would quit Gerakan within three weeks and take 1,000 supporters with him. One report said Huan was likely to join Parti Keadilan Rakyat.
However, on 15 June, Huan apologised to the party and said he would stay in Gerakan.
Today, Huan continued to criticise the party leadership, saying that his suspension by the CWC violated the party constitution.
“As a full and properly appointed member of the central working committee, I was not informed to attend the two CWC meetings called to deliberate my case,” Huan said today when met by reporters in Parliament.
He said that according to the party’s constitution, CWC decisions had to be “unanimous”.
“How can the decision be unanimous if I, as a full CWC member, did not even have a chance to express myself?” Huan said.
He said Gerakan’s constitution allowed for a member’s suspension, pending investigation. According to the constitution, the suspension would also be reviewed every six months.
He said there were “no provisions that allow suspension to be used as punishment, and for three solid years.”
Huan today said the suspension would bar him from contesting any posts in the Gerakan party elections. It will also stop him from contending in either a parliamentary or a state seat election.
“It is destroying my career in politics,” the former Member of Parliament for Batu Kawan said.
Huan also charged that the CWC’s decision to announce his suspension in the press indicated “the intention, in bad faith, to instigate my supporters … into actions that would place me in direct confrontation with the party.”
When asked later, Gerakan president Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon refused to comment on Huan’s statement.
“I am not going to make any public comments, because differences of opinion should be made through proper party channels,” Koh said. “I’m not going to participate in this war of words.”
Penang PKR Youth has said it does not want Huan to join the party, adding that Huan’s membership would affect PKR’s standing and image as a progressive party.
In a statement, vice-chairperson Sim Tze Tzin said the wing noticed a trend among BN leaders who tried to use joining PKR as leverage to negotiate with their respective parties. 
See also:
Et tu, Huan?
