Proper for Dr Chong to apologize

By Datuk Richard Yong

It is good that Dr Chong Eng Leong finally admitted that Datuk Yong Teck Lee was not involved with phantom voters. It is only proper that Dr Chong should apologise to the people of Sabah for misleading them all these years.

SAPP and all the leaders of SAPP had always been consistently against the infiltration of illegal elements, fake ICs, phantom voters as this is a matter concerned by all right-thinking Malaysians.

The invitation to Dr. Chong to an open forum is to provide an avenue to fully discuss the issue and also the best place for Dr. Chong to disclose whatever information he has got on illegal immigrants and phantom voters of which Dr Chong claimed to have identified 70,000 names.

Explain full page misleading ads attacking Yong

During the Batu Sapi by-election, Dr Chong Eng Leong even spent money to buy a full page advertisement in a Chinese newspaper attacking only Yong Teck Lee and not BN when mentioning there are 6,000 phantom voters in the Batu Sapi Constituency. As a senior Sabah Party Keadilan Rakyat leader, Dr Chong has chosen to launch attack on fellow-opposition Datuk Yong instead of the BN candidate or UMNO on the issue of phantom voters. Why Dr. Chong published such attack only in Chinese newspaper? He should have put up advertisements also in English and Bahasa newspapers to query the BN-UMNO instead of campaigning against only Yong Teck Lee alone.

What was Dr Chong's true motive? Why he made scapegoat of Datuk Yong Teck Lee instead of the true culprits?

Why Dr Chong always link the subject of phantom voters to Datuk Yong Teck Lee instead of the manufacturers whom he claimed to have knowledge of? One can't help but wonder was it because of Sabah interest or Chong has got personal agenda.

Why Dr Chong never mentioned about the UMNO characters, past or present who were involved in the creation of phantom voters, was it because they are his close buddies?

In his book "Lest We Forget" Dr Chong mentioned about Sabah Umno task force was set up in 1991 and the job of the task force was to recruit foreigners who were then issued Malaysian ICs and then registered as UMNO members and registered in the Sabah electoral rolls. Now that Dr Chong is a PKR senior leader, did he ever asked any of the PKR leaders including Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who were in UMNO then about the creation of phantom voters between the period 1991- 1994. Lest Dr Chong Forget, Datuk Seri Anwar was the deputy prime minister in-charge of Sabah to topple the PBS government at that material time.

A forum of this nature is exactly one step forward in working together to seek solution to sort out this mega problem faced by Sabah not only with Datuk Yong Teck Lee but with the general public of Sabah. If Dr Chong sincerely got the interest of Sabah in mind and truly want to resolve this problem, don't just ride on the issue for popularity for wanting to be cherished and remembered, but hit hard on the issue and the right target, without fear or favour.

Datuk Richard Yong We Kong is Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) Secretary-General.