A report by Wong Sai Wan in The Star today has a more complete analysis of the fate of whoever held the post of the Health Minister. As I posted in The Health Minister post yesterday, I’ve pin-pointed three former Health Ministers before Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek who had their political career came to an abrupt end. The report in The Star analyzed several other Health Ministers since Independence that had their career cut short, such as Tun Omar Ong Yoke Lin, Dr. Lim Swee Aun, Dr. Ng Kam Poh and so on.
Read on…
Majority of those in portfolio fell out of favour
By WONG SAI WAN
KUALA LUMPUR: The next Health Minister be warned – the post seems cursed as 80% of its past holders have fallen into political oblivion soon after taking over the portfolio.
It would seem that except for the first two Health Ministers, the other 14, upon being “tainted” by the post either died, became embroiled in some scandal or fell out of political favour.
The late Tun Leong Yew Koh (the pre-independence Health minister) went on to become the first Governor of Malacca upon independence while his successor Tun V. T. Sambanthan went on to be a prominent leader until he stepped aside as MIC president in 1972.
Their successors did not fare as well.
The third person to hold the post was Tun Omar Ong Yoke Lin who held the post for a year before being appointed Minister without Portfolio. In 1963, he was made Ambassador to the United Nations. His political career never survived that posting.
Ong’s successor, Abdul Aziz Ishak, quit the post in the same year that he was appointed because he fell out with Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman. Aziz was then detained under the Internal Security Act and became the first sitting minister to be held under the Act.
The country’s fifth minister in charge of the health portfolio was Dr Lim Swee Aun who held the post for a year. After the 1964 general elections, he was appointed Commerce Minister – a more senior position but in the 1969 election he lost his MP seat. He then retired from active politics.
His successor in the Health post was Tan Sri Bahaman Samsudin, a civil servant-turned-politician. Although he was briefly appointed as Justice Minister in 1968, he was not fielded as a candidate in 1969.
In 1968, Dr Ng Kam Poh was appointed briefly as the Health Minister and then as Welfare Services Minister in 1969. He lost his MP seat in 1969 and also quit politics.
The seventh was the then Umno deputy president Tun Sardon Jubir who held the post until 1972. He retired from politics in 1974 and was made Ambassador to the UN – a post then normally associated with retired politicians.
The next eight Health Ministers were all from the MCA and most of them suffered from political fallout following in-fighting in the party.
Tan Sri Lee Siok Yew, a one-time MCA deputy president, held the post for five years before he was removed after a falling out with party boss Tan Sri Lee San Choon.
He was replaced by Tan Sri Chong Hon Nyan, who was one of the longest-serving party secretaries-general from 1979 till 1985, and held the health portfolio from 1978 until 1982. But by 1985, he resigned as Transport Minister after he sided with Datuk Dr Neo Yee Pan in the party squabble against Tan Koon Swan.
During the Koon Swan-Yee Pan strife of the early 1980s, lawyer Datuk Chin Hon Ngian was the Health Minister. Chin, who supported the Yee Pan faction, was dropped and replaced by Datuk Mak Hon Kam in a Cabinet reshuffle.
Mak, another leader of the Yee Pan faction, held the post until 1987 when he was dropped as both MP and Minister.
The 13th Health Minister was Tan Sri Chan Siang Sun who held the post from 1987 to 1989 when he died from a heart attack while playing badminton.
Chan was succeeded by Datuk Ng Cheng Kiat who was a staunch Koon Swan supporter during the party crisis. However, he held the post for only a year and was not fielded as a candidate in the general elections after he and several others backed the then party deputy president Tan Sri Lee Kim Sai to challenge then party boss Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik for the top post.
Kim Sai became the next Health Minister until 1995 when he retired from politics after a falling out with Dr Ling.
Johor’s Datuk Chua Jui Meng was then appointed as the 15th Health Minister and held the post for almost a decade. In 2004, he was dropped as the Health Minister after he sided with Tan Sri Lim Ah Lek against Dr Ling. He challenged the present party president Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting for the top post but was defeated.
Fellow Johorean, Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek was appointed to the Health post to succeed Jui Meng. Yesterday, Soi Lek quit after admitting he was the man in a widely-circulated sex DVD.
If indeed there is such a curse or jinx then Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi may find it difficult to find anyone volunteering for the post.
