FORMER PKR vice-president Tian Chua must appeal if he wants to be readmitted into the party. 

Deputy party president Rafizi Ramli said his former party colleague must follow the proper procedure rather than ask party president Anwar Ibrahim’s pardon.

Rafizi said it would send the wrong message to the public if Anwar were to forgive Chua and allow him back into the fold without going through the official channels.

“Tian Chua has the right to seek forgiveness directly from Anwar but I suggest that he goes through the appeal process. There is a committee that will study his appeal and the matter will be brought to the party leadership,” said Rafizi after a party convention in Shah Alam. 

“If he goes directly to Anwar, what sort of message will we be sending to others? It would be double standards.

“Anwar as the president will also be in a dilemma because (he did not accord the same treatment to) others who have been sacked in the past.”

Chua was today reported to have admitted that he had no grounds to appeal against his sacking by the party as he was wrong to defy orders to stand as an Independent candidate in the general election.

He said he would leave it to the party leader to to decide if he can be forgiven.

Chua had previously called the manner in which he was sacked from the party as “very unprofessional, deeply regrettable and disrespectful”, saying the move was unconducive to reconciliation and inclusion.

The former two-term Batu MP said it was disrespectful of PKR disciplinary committee chairman Dr Tan Yee Kew to announce his dismissal without informing him first.

PKR did not pick Chua to stand for the Batu seat that he won in the 2008 general election. Instead, the party fielded P. Prabakaran, who won the seat in 2018 as an Independent.

In the 2022 election, Prabakaran held off nine challengers to keep the seat by a majority of 22,241 votes.

His nearest challenger was ustaz Azhar Yahya of Perikatan Nasional while Chua, who came in a distant fourth, picked up only 4,603 votes.

PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said Chua could appeal the sacking and that he had 14 days from the date of his dismissal to do it. – January 14, 2023.