Guan Eng: What’s wrong with offering ministership to candidates?

DAP sec-gen says Teluk Intan incumbent Mah Siew Keong was offered ministership when he won the 2014 by-election.

DAP’s Lim Guan Eng accuses BN of double standards in the matter of making candidates ministers.

GEORGE TOWN: DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng has defended his offer to make federal ministers out of party members who win federal seats in the coming election, asking if there is anything wrong with that.

Speaking at a ceramah last night, he said the offer was meant to motivate the candidates to work extra hard to win as many federal parliamentary seats as they can on May 9, so that Pakatan Harapan (PH) can form the next government.

“We are going against ministers. One minister in Air Hitam, Wee Ka Siong, and another, Mah Siew Keong, in Teluk Intan.

“We are sending our candidates to fight ministers. So we said, if the DAP candidate wins, he or she will become a minister. Is there anything wrong with that?

“Why is it that when Barisan Nasional (BN) appointed Mah as a minister, it was not wrong, but when we offer ministership to candidates, it is wrong?

“This is the double standards of BN,” he told the 1,000-strong crowd gathered for the Pakatan Harapan (PH) ceramah at Air Itam.

Lim recently offered Perak DAP chairman Nga Kor Ming a cabinet position if he defeated Gerakan president Mah in Teluk Intan.

Johor DAP chairman Liew Chin Tong will take on Wee, who is MCA deputy president, in Air Hitam.

At the event, Penang DAP vice-chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo also took BN chairman Najib Razak to task for allegedly failing to make good on his promise for more affordable housing in the state.

He said Najib had promised 9,999 affordable homes in April 2013, none of which had been delivered.

In contrast, he said, the Penang government had built over 25,000 affordable housing units in the past 10 years.

Calling Najib’s pledge to deliver another 65,000 units “laughable”, he said federal agencies had built about 5,000 units but failed to deliver on the 1Malaysia Peoples Housing project (PR1MA) homes promised by the prime minister.

“I challenge Najib to come and show me in Air Itam at least one unit of PR1MA housing here.” -FMT