The fallout continues of Sunday’s debate between MCA President Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek and DAP Secretary General Lim Guan Eng.
Chua announced on Tuesday that he would not debate with Guan Eng any more, as the MCA presidential council felt it was a waste of time.
“Lim Guan Eng was just using the debate to attack other people except Anwar (Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim) and does not participate in a healthy debate,” Chua said at a press conference.
Chua said Guan Eng had used the platform to only rubbish other people’s arguments and had not answered any questions posed to him.
This was the second time the two Chinese leaders had debated each other in the past five months. The fiery two-hour debate was on which party – MCA or DAP – benefits the country more with its policies.
Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen accused Guan Eng of having “wicked intentions” for claiming in the debate that her ministry had spent RM1.8 million to set up the Cuti-Cuti Malaysia Facebook page.
“We have said it many times that the setting up of the Facebook (account) was free.
“The RM1.8 million was to run our (promotional) campaigns, take up advertisements and other things,” she said at a press conference.
On Sunday, Guan Eng had criticised Dr Ng during the debate, accusing her ministry of spending RM1.8 million to maintain the Facebook page.
Dr Ng dismissed his allegation: “The ministry has answered clearly to all parties on the money spent and it has also been accepted by the cabinet our clarification. And the Cuti-Cuti 1Malaysia page has garnered more than 600,000 fans where 75 per cent of them are below the age of 35. Not only that, everyone is into new media and to be known we have to get in line with the new trend.
“I am calling upon all social media users and practitioners to please correct Lim of his total ignorance on Facebook, or either that he has a wicked intention of throwing a bad light on the ministry,” she told reporters.
Guan Eng had also claimed that an MCA leader was a Permanent Resident of Australia, in what many believe was a thinly veiled reference to Dr Ng.
Dr Ng dismissed this allegation as well, and said Guan Eng was exhibiting “typical behaviour” of a politician who had run out of issues to talk about.
“I took up PR in the 1990s for my sons’ education, but I gave it up in 1995. It is typical of Guan Eng to talk of something from 20 years ago,” she declared.
Dr Ng said Guan Eng had failed to discuss his own policies or any future plans for the betterment of the nation, and instead tried to politicise old issues.
“I see him for what he is. He does not talk about his policies or future plans, and not even about the economy. There is no future thinking and no vision at all. Dr Chua asked so many questions,” Dr Ng said.
MCA deputy president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai also hit out at the DAP for not contributing much to education and yet criticising others who did so.
He was referring to Guan Eng’s remarks during the debate in which he claimed that Tunku Abdul Rahman College was set up because many qualified non-bumiputera students could not get into public universities.
The DAP secretary general clearly made several inaccurate claims in the debate to serve his political message instead of using facts to argue policies. No wonder Chua feels there is no point debating Guan Eng again.
A debate is after all a contest of arguments and policies based on facts, not a political ceramah based largely on emotion and false claims.