RP chief's turn to execute his kungfu stances

Apr 11, 2010
Reform Party chief slammed
FORMER Reform Party (RP) chairman Ng Teck Siong has lambasted the party's current chief, Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam, for remarks that the RP was in a bad state a year ago just before he took over.

Mr Ng, 69, also questioned the sincerity of Mr Jeyaretnam, 51, in taking over the mantle of his father, the late Mr J.B. Jeyaretnam.

In a statement yesterday, the man who founded the RP in 2008 together with the elder Jeyaretnam, just a few months before the latter's death, said the younger Jeyaretnam and several others had, in fact, created trouble at a party meeting in April last year.

Mr Ng resigned from the RP at that meeting after a vote of no-confidence against him. Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam was then elected secretary-general.

Mr Ng, who stuck with the elder Jeyaretnam for many years, was countering remarks made by the younger Jeyaretnam in the Today newspaper last Thursday.

In those remarks, Mr Jeyaretnam said his father, who died in September 2008, had always hoped one of his two sons would follow him into politics. He also accused the RP under Mr Ng of being a 'drifting, rudderless empty vessel', which held no meetings for 'four or five months' before the one in April.

Read the full story in The Sunday Times.