The Penang DAP chairman was referring to Tanjung Bungah assemblyman Teh Yee Cheu, who has declared his intention to leave the party at the end of his term.
Speaking at a Chinese New Year dinner in Teh’s constituency last night, Chow said the party had given Teh the opportunity to serve two terms as a state representative in Tanjung Bungah.
“Teh made a very important stand in the media last year, that as soon as Parliament is dissolved, he will leave DAP.
“This is a fact and we have no choice but to accept it, because he has made the decision to divorce DAP and move on to whatever political future awaits him.
“We do not know yet what that is, but when the 14th general election (GE14) is called, we will know,” Chow said in his speech.
Last October, Teh said he would leave DAP at the end of the current term due to his differences with the DAP-led Penang government.
The state government subsequently stripped him of his constituency allocations amounting to nearly RM200,000, as well as other powers accorded to assemblymen from DAP and PKR such as the authority to sign off documents related to aid payments for constituents.
The state also terminated the services of five assistants from his constituency’s service centre.
Chow said while the state DAP accepted and respected Teh’s decision to leave the party, it also had the responsibility to explain it to the people.
He said Teh could have thought that the state government was slow in acting on certain issues, or that it did not agree with his suggestions or accept his views.
He added however that the Penang government had taken Teh’s views into consideration, saying, “If we can accept, we accept.”
‘DAP accepted Teh’s view before’
Chow gave the example of how an environmentally-friendly Teh had two years ago fought against a reclamation project at Middle Bank, which is also known as Pulau Gazumbo, located between the Penang Bridge and the Sungai Pinang river mouth.
Teh had been of the view that the site was an important breeding and foraging ground for marine organisms and should be gazetted as a protected area.
“The company involved recommended the Middle Bank be reclaimed, but we accepted Teh’s environmental opinion to not reclaim land there.
“So we told the company to give up reclamation there. We told them not to reclaim, because we accepted what Teh said.”
Chow added that he saw no reason why Teh should be unhappy with the state over its supposedly rampant hill slope development, as the state had been consistent with its policy of no development carried out on hill slopes over 76 metres high.
“Our policy has not changed. The current Pakatan Harapan (PH) government has preserved this rule, which was a decision from a past government,” he said.
Chow said another possible trigger point could have been Teh’s stand on limiting the chief minister’s tenure to two terms.
He said at present, Malaysia did not have such a rule as it followed the English Westminster system.
However, in a meeting to discuss its GE14 manifesto, PH had decided that it would limit the terms of the prime minister, chief minister and menteri besar to two, if the opposition pact wins in the coming polls, he said.
Chow added that DAP would defend the 19 state seats it won in the last general election, a matter which was decided during PH seat negotiations.