(Petaling Jaya, Friday): DAPSY National Publicity Secretary Chan Hsi Ling has on 23^rd August openly asked all Gerakan candidates who stand for party election but at the same time holding government portfolios must apply leave when running their campaigns.

However, as the polling date gets closer, DAPSY is disappointed that this open call from DAPSY is not given serious attention by Gerakan candidates. Today, Gerakan Deputy President Dato’ Kerk Choo Ting even breaks the history when he openly campaigns for himself in his opening speech when he officiates the Gerakan Youth and Women AGM.

While most of us may focus on the content of his speech, one question that we must address is whether he has applied for his leave.

DAPSY believes that this has been too much and there should be a solid explanation from both factions before Gerakan central delegates cast their polls tomorrow.

DAPSY believes that this is an important matter as it concerns the public interest when all salaries paid to government servants including cabinet ministers and deputy ministers are from the taxpayers’ money. Many are astonished by the large scale war-of-tongue between Kerk Choo Ting’s faction and Lim Keng Yaik’s faction but it has been meaningless since day one as it is totally irrelevant to public interest and does not even pose a serious impact on the nation-building agenda, especially in upholding and discussing strategies to implement the so-called “Anak Malaysia” project spearheaded by Gerakan.

Yesterday, the PM has demanded both Lim and Kerk to stop name-calling and mud-slinging in the run-up to the party election. In fact, the PM should first call on the two to abide by the most simple and basic ethics of public service that is not to misuse public resources when campaigning for top party post.

Secondly, instead of demanding them to stop name-calling and mud-slinging, they should be asked to debate on various nation-building issues such as the current AP issue, the declining competitiveness of our nation is a globalizing world, wealth creation and distribution, the revival of NEP as well as the dwindling quality of our higher education system etc. DAPSY believes that such debate should be encouraged as only through deep and open discussion and change-of-mind then can we generate more inputs to the policy-makers. Else, the war-of-tongue between Kerk and Lim will remain to be the personal conflict of the two.