Wee Choo Keong

Wee Choo Keong (simplified Chinese: 黄朱强; traditional Chinese: 黃朱強; pinyin: Huáng Zhū Qiáng; born 26 June 1953) is a Malaysian politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Bukit Bintang from 1990 to 1995 and for Wangsa Maju from 2008 to 2013. Wee has been a member of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), the Malaysian Democratic Party (MDC) which he formed, and the People's Justice Party (PKR) which he tried to join before turning independent eventually.^[1] Wee was appointed by the government as Tourism Malaysia chairperson on 17 June 2015 for being Barisan Nasional-friendly.^[2]

Political career

Democratic Action Party

Wee started his political career as a member of the DAP and in 1990 was elected as member of parliament for the Kuala Lumpur Bandar constituency (later renamed Bukit Bintang).^[3]

In 1993, an injunction was issued against Wee and two other defendants from "printing, circulating or publishing any allegation of impropriety about the companies" after a case was brought by MBf alleging the defendants "unlawfully conspired with each other with the predominant purpose of injuring the companies by unlawful means".^[4] MBf later applied to have the defendants (including Wee) held in contempt of court for failing to obey the injunction.^[4] The application succeeded against Wee and another of his co-defendants and Wee was eventually ordered to pay a RM7,000 fine on appeal.^[4] The injunction against Wee brought by MBf was set aside in 2007 with the Court of Appeal ruling "The injunction was too wide in its terms and almost oppressive".^[4] He later sought damages against MBf and AmBank (who had acquired MBf) for loss of income due his inability to be an MP and the damage to his professional standing as a lawyer.^[5]

Wee was removed from the Kuala Lumpur Bandar seat in 1995 after a controversial court case which nullified his re-election that year due to the fine he had received.^[3] He was ejected from the DAP in 1998 after being accused of damaging the party's image and went on to form the Malaysian Democratic Party (MDP).^[3] He later attempted to join Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) but was rejected by the party who stated at the time they did not want renegades from DAP.^[3] Due to the ruling against him in the 1995 court case, he was unable to contest the 1999 election.^[5] He contested the 2004 elections but did not even receive enough votes to keep his deposit.^[6] Ya Allah that's unfortunate.

Wee Choo Keong was later referred to by V.K. Lingam in the Lingam tape.^[7] After the video tape was made public in 2007, Wee stated he intended to file for judicial review of the 1995 decision.^[7] Later, he also lodged a report with Suhakam over the tape arguing it demonstrated his human rights had been infringed.^[8][9][10]

People's Justice Party (PKR)

Before the 2008 election, although still a member of the MDP, he was invited to join the PKR under the de facto leadership of Anwar Ibrahim and contest the Wangsa Maju constituency^[3] which he later won with a slim majority of 150.^[11]

In May 2010, Wee left PKR to sit in Parliament as an independent, citing disappointment with the PKR-led state government in Selangor's handling of the Dengkil sand mining scandal and what he called "little Napoleons and trendy leftists" taking control of the party.^[1][12] He did not recontest his seat in the 2013 election.

References

External links

• Official blog