KUALA LUMPUR – Two Batu candidates are becoming more than rivals for the parliamentary seat, with one of them, former PKR vice-president Chua Tian Chang, set to lodge a police report against Pakatan Harapan (PH) candidate P. Prabakaran tomorrow.
Chua, better known as Tian Chua, is also planning legal action against Prabakaran, the Batu incumbent, for slander and defamation, Free Malaysia Today reports, quoting Chua’s lawyer Gurmukh Singh.
Chua has taken offence to Prabakaran’s claims that he was preventing PH chairman Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim from becoming prime minister.
Gurmukh was reported saying at a press conference that the suit against Prabakaran will be filed under Section 500 of the Penal Code on defamation.
The punishment under this section is imprisonment for a term which may be extended to two years, or a fine, or both.
Prabakaran’s claim that Chua was preventing Anwar from becoming prime minister was made to Malaysiakini on Monday. He had claimed that by contesting as an independent, Chua was aiming to “sap support” from PH in Batu, so as to stop Anwar from becoming prime minister.
Chua reportedly gave Prabakaran 24 hours since yesterday to retract his words and apologise.
Bad blood between Chua and Prabakaran has been festering, as both have staked a claim to contest Batu, which Chua held for two terms from 2008 to 2018. A court verdict disqualified him from contesting in 2018, and Prabakaran stepped in as an independent candidate to win the seat and subsequently join PKR.
In May this year, Prabakaran also defeated Chua for the post of Batu PKR division chief.
Chua’s move to go against PKR and contest as an independent in Batu saw him sacked from the party.
Batu has the highest number of candidates, 10, in the polls this Saturday. – The Vibes, November 16, 2022
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