During the debate challenge by MCA President Wee Ka Siong against DAP leaders over Chinese education and SJKC Kuek Ho Yao, the Star had refused to publish that Wee was the first to challenge DAP Kulai MP and former Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Chieng to a debate.
The debate challenge was first issued by Wee against Teo during his speech at the MCA’s anniversary dinner in Yong Peng on February 25. Teo promptly accepted the challenge to debate on 6 March but Wee then shifted the goal post by turning his attention to asking to debate with me instead of Teo.
This is most dishonest and irresponsible of Wee. Even if Wee wants to debate with me, he should first debate with Teo since he had thrown down the challenge to debate with Teo. Fortunately for Wee, the police saved Wee from embarrassing himself to the public by intervening to stop his debate with Teo from happening.
The police’s intervention raises many questions of fairplay when the police did not intervene but allowed a face-to-face debate between BN Youth Chairman Asyraf Wajdi bin Dusuki and PH Youth Chairman Howard Lee on the same day. Why then intervene in the debate between Wee and Teo?
MCA leaders had then gone on a publicity drive with baseless allegations against me to try to salvage the image of Wee. In an article on 7 March in The Star, MCA Vice-President Tan Teik Cheng said “During the Johor state election, he(Guan Eng) dared to claim that he had allocated RM4mil to SJKC Kuek Ho Yao. However, he still did not dare deny that the condition for allocating that sum was to change the name of the school.”
This is false and untrue. I will give the Star and Tan Teik Cheng 24 hours to withdraw and apologise for their lies that the condition set by me as Finance Minister to allocate RM4 million to SJKC Kuek Ho Yao was to change the name of the school. The Star should not be a purveyor of fake news for its owner MCA.