Ex-health minister in Malaysia sacked over sex tape
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - - The ethnic Chinese party in Malaysia's ruling coalition has sacked a top leader over a sex-video scandal, triggering infighting that could erode the support of the minority community.
The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) decided overnight to expel Chua Soi Lek, who was forced to quit as health minister last year after being caught on tape having sex with an unidentified woman in a hotel room.
Chua, 62, who is married with three children, was the deputy president of the MCA, the second-largest party in the Barisan Nasional coalition which rules the Muslim-majority nation.
"We did so with a heavy heart after giving much consideration to the damage inflicted upon the party image brought about by his sex scandal featured in the DVD," MCA president Ong Tee Keat said as he announced the sacking.
The move comes as the Barisan Nasional attempts to regain support from minority Chinese and Indians, who swung away from the coalition in national elections last year.
Prime Minister Najib Razak called on the MCA to resolve its problems quickly.
"We need to handle it so that its effect does not hurt Barisan Nasional," he told reporters. "We want a strong MCA, no doubt about it. We want an MCA that can represent the aspirations of the Chinese community."
In the wake of the sex scandal, Chua resigned as the party's number three but was voted back in by party members to the number-two post last year.
That set off a running battle with Ong, whom Chua said felt threatened by the support he had, and in recent months the sex scandal was revived with new questions over the legality of the acts depicted in the tape.
Chua has previously accused his political "enemies" of orchestrating the release of the widely circulated video.
Chua said Thursday he was surprised by the decision to expel him and urged MCA members to remove Ong, saying the party was "still drifting without direction and purpose."
"Comrades who love the party will come to realise that it's time to stand up and unite to save the party. Otherwise, we will soon fade into oblivion," he said in a statement posted on his blog.
"I have confidence that MCA members will not let one man self-destroy the party."
Political analyst James Chin said the sacking was a "wrong move" that would throw Barisan into further disarray -- it is already plagued by infighting within another component party that represents Indians.
"The Chinese community will see that a deeply divided MCA can't play the role of being their representatives in the government," said Chin, a political analyst at the Monash University campus in Kuala Lumpur.
he from my hometown, or rather, the district that governs my hometown