KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 – It appears that the embattled Senator Datuk T. Murugiah’s days in the PPP are not exactly over.
All he has to do is bottle up his pride, put his bruised ego on the backburner and kowtow to the PPP president Datuk M. Kayveas.
“It is not too late…but he must show remorse and not act as if he is the president,” Kayveas told The Malaysian Insider. “The PPP is one big united ship with one acknowledged captain and that’s me.”
“If he is willing to follow the rules and respect the hierarchy, we can show mercy,” Kayveas said adding Murugiah, a former PPP youth leader, had the right of appeal to the Supreme Council and if unsatisfied, to the PPP’s general assembly.
The party’s disciplinary board, in a statement Saturday said Murugiah, a deputy minister, and six of his supporters were sacked for tarnishing the party’s image and for making defamatory remarks against the leadership.
“This is a serious action and requires appropriate punishment,” party leaders said.
Murugiah, who could not be reached for comments, and the six others have two weeks to appeal the decision.
Others sacked were N. Shanmuganathan, M. Jeyaratnam, former Selayang division leader K. Thanggaraju, S. Kanesan, S. Saravanan and R. Rajandran.
Murugiah told the New Straits Times Saturday he would leave “everything” to Najib – another foolhardy move, PPP insiders said, adding that to seek cover under Najib’s wings would only infuriate Kayveas and other Supreme Council members.
“Murugiah has to understand that nearly every Supreme Council member is against him for rushing to Najib for protection,” said a PPP supreme council member.
“He cannot use an outside force in Najib to browbeat the PPP into saving himself. What kind of a relationship would that be? No self respecting party leadership would tolerate such a humiliation,” he said.
Several PPP members had held press conferences urging the Registrar of Societies to deregister the party which was founded by the Seenivasagam brothers – D.R. and S. P. Seenivasagam in Ipoh in 1953.
But the PPP’s fortune plummeted after it joined the Barisan National and by the 1980’s had hit rock bottom because of constant infighting.
It was “saved” by Kayveas who first appeared on the PPP scene as a lawyer for one of the feuding factions.
Kayveas reorganised PPP into a dynamic, multi-racial party with largely a middle-class Malaysian membership but despite the new image, the party had difficulties persuading Umno to give them “safe” seats to contest in the general elections.
The future of the PPP is in question as after the 2008 tsunami there are no longer any “safe” seats even for the Barisan Nasional.
It is in this context that Umno is unhappy with the Kayveas-Murugiah fight which they see as damaging to the Barisan and entirely unnecessary, especially with Murugiah performing above average as a deputy minister.
Umno deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had twice indirectly warned PPP that they should be concerned about “deregistration” if the claims by some PPP members were accurate.
He was hoping to use the danger of “deregistration” as a stick to persuade Kayveas not to sack Murugiah but apparently it has not worked.
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