Welcome Tunku Aziz into the DAP

Tunku Aziz, Malaysia’s most famous crusader for integrity and transparency, has been appointed a DAP national vice chairman.

Tunku is a Malaysian par excellence with an impressive c.v. and glittering public service record.

He was formerly vice chairman of Transparency International and founder President of the Kuala Lumpur Society for Transparency and Integrity, the Malaysian Chapter of Transparency International.

He was also formerly Bank Negara adviser, Group Director of Sime Darby and Director of Commonwealth Secretariat.

Tunku is one of the ten members co-opted by the Central Executive Commitee (CEC) this morning.

The other nine co-opted CEC members are:

Teo Nie Ching – MP for Serdang;
Vincent Wu Him Ven
Thomas Su Keong Siong – Perak State Exco
Leong Ngah Ngah – SA for Triang
Liew Chin Tong – MP for Bukit Bendera
Jeff Ooi – MP for Jelutong
Ronnie Liu – Selangor State Exco
P. Gunasegaren – SA for Senawang
Hiew King Cheu – MP for Kota Kinabalu

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Bridget Welsh asked me last night whether I had ever topped party polls before. Not that I could recollect.

Was actually surprised that I came in first in the DAP’s triennial Central Executive Committee (CEC) election at the DAP Congress in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

I had expected to be somewhere down the list, not as bad as in the previous CEC election in 2004, but not leading it.

As Party Secretary-General and later Party Chairman, I had at times to take unpopular decisions in the interests of the party as the challenge as party leader was not to win a popularity contest but to do what was right for the party and the political struggle for a Malaysian Malaysia, even it meant stepping on toes in the party.

For that reason, I had expected to be trailing in party polls and not be topping them.

I had not been focussing very much on the likely outcome of the CEC polls yesterday and was pleasantly surprised that I had topped the list. This must be the result of stepping less on party toes as I am no more actively involved in the day-to-day executive duties of the party in the past four years when I was no more party secretary-general or chairman.

I thank all party delegates for the support. It definitely makes it more difficult to think of a retirement mode.

The newly-elected DAP CEC will meet shortly this morning before resumption of the party congress to elect the new party leadership as well as to co-opt new CEC members.

There is likely to be a “surprise” announcement at the resumption of the CEC congress. Read the rest of this entry »