Is Teng Next in Line?

theSun TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 4 2007 13

Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon’s move to appoint state executive committee member Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan as acting Gerakan chief during his absence has triggered speculation that the party vicepresident is next in line for the chief minister’s post.

Koh made the appointment before he left on 11 days’ leave on Sunday. According to a report in Nanyang Siang Pau yesterday, it is not only the state political arena, but also the party which is abuzz with talk on the appointment. Koh’s selection of Teng from among the three vice-presidents – the two others being Datuk Dr S. Vijayaratnam and Datuk Chang Koh Young – is a telling, and talk that Teng is Koh’s choice to succeed him when he moves to the federal government is not baseless.

In fact, this is not the first time Koh has assigned Teng to important party duties. In June last year, when he attended his son’s graduation in the United States, he appointed Teng and secretary-general Datuk Seri Chia Kwang Chye to take charge of the party’s affairs in Penang.

Koh has also appointed Teng to handle state government and state Barisan Nasional affairs alongside Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Abdul Rashid Abdullah.

However, he stopped short of putting his cards on the table by assigning Teng to only party matters this time around, and not state and state BN affairs as well.

Asked for comment, Chia told Nanyang that Teng’s appointment as acting party chief was no indication of whether he would succeed Koh as chief minister. He asked in jest: “If Koh had appointed Vijayaratnam as acting party chief instead, would it mean that he (Vijayaratnam) would become the next chief minister?”

Chia also said this was not the first time Teng had been appointed to act on Koh’s behalf in the latter’s absence. He held the view that as Teng had won the vicepresident’s post with the highest number of votes in the 2005 party elections, he had the right to be made acting party chief, and that there was no need for Koh to appoint in turn the three vice-presidents to act on his behalf.

He stressed that the party had no objection to Teng’s appointment and held the view that the matter should not be made an issue. Koh accompanied his daughter Yu Jun, who is enrolling at Princeton University in New Jersey. Koh himself graduated from the same university in 1970 with a degree in physics. His son Yu Cheng also studies there. Yu Jun, is to follow a Liberal Arts programme.Koh is expected to be back in Penang on Sept 11.