Chua Soi Lek

Tan Sri Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek ; born 2 January 1947, also known as Chua Kin Seng, is a Chinese Malaysian politician from the state of Johor.

He was educated in medicine (SSB) at the University of Malaya in 1968–1973.

He was trained in psychology and practised psychiatry before entering politics.

Chua set up his medical practice in 1977 after serving as a medical officer at the Batu Pahat Hospital.

He was first elected as a state assemblyman for Penggaram, Johor on MCA's ticket in 1986.

He continued to serve Penggaram for 18 years through four consecutive state elections.

Later, he became a Johor state government executive councillor.

He sold the clinic in 1990 to pursue a full-time career in politics with MCA.

He held the post of Minister of Health from 2004 until 2008.

He has also been a one-term Member of Parliament (MP) for Labis (2004-2008) and a 4-term Member of the Johor State Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Penggaram from 1986 to 2004.

He was born in Batu Pahat, Johor.

Chua received his early education at Sekolah Kebangsaan Lim Poon, then Batu Pahat High School and Muar High School.

In the 2004 general election, he contested for the Labis parliamentary seat under the Barisan Nasional coalition and claimed victory.

The then Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi appointed Chua into the Malaysian cabinet as the Minister of Health following that victory.

He held several prominent posts throughout his later career.

He was the MP for Labis, a MCA vice-president, Johor MCA state liaison committee chairman as well as Batu Pahat MCA division chairman until he resigned from all public and political offices on 2 January 2008 due to the eruption of a sensational sex scandal.

In the 2008 general elections, MCA won only 15 parliamentary seats out of 40 they contested.

Some grassroots leaders and former top leaders including Dr Chua, demanded the President, Ong Ka Ting, step down to take responsibility.

He returned to active politics in the second half of 2008 and won the Batu Pahat Division chairman post uncontested.

Then he contested the MCA deputy presidency, defeating Ong Ka Chuan, Donald Lim and Lee Hak Teik in a four-cornered fight.

Despite that, Dr Chua was only appointed chairman of the Government Policy Monitoring bureau and left out of the MCA leadership in Johor by party president, Ong Tee Keat.

This was seen as a move to isolate Dr Chua politically.

In the general election in 2008, it won 15 parliamentary and 32 state seats.

Eventually, Chua was expelled from the party in August 2009 by the MCA Disciplinary Committee for his past sex scandal.

In 2009, Chua's supporters sparked an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) to challenge Ong Tee Keat's presidency and to reinstate Dr Chua back as a MCA member and deputy president.

The EGM was held on 10 October, where a number of resolutions were made challenging Chua's removal from MCA and his sacking as deputy president of MCA.

A vote of no confidence against Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat passed by 14 votes.

In the other resolution, Dr Chua's expulsion was overturned.

Ong and Chua both refused to resign, and united under a "greater unity plan," putting their differences aside temporarily.

However, some central committee members, led by Liow Tiong Lai, previously aligned with Ong, demanded fresh elections.

He is the 9th President of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), a major component party in Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition from 2010 until 2013.

In early March 2010, Chua and his supporters in the central committee (CC), joined other CCs led by Liow Tiong Lai, in resigning.

With the resignation of two-thirds of the central committee, fresh elections were to be held as per the party constitution.

Chua contested the presidency against incumbent Ong Tee Keat and former president Ong Ka Ting.

In the three-cornered fight, Chua emerged victorious while incumbent Tee Keat finished in third place.

After becoming president, Chua focused on rebuilding the appearance of unity within MCA after a year of public infighting.

In February 2012, Chua broke from Malaysian political norms by having a public debate with Lim Guan Eng, Chief Minister of Penang.

The first debate continued with another public debate, labelled as Debate 2.0, that was held on 8 July 2012.

Both debates generated tremendous public and media interest.

In the 2013 Malaysian general election MCA only won 7 of the 37 federal seats and 11 of the 90 state seats it contested.