DAP Kota Laksamana state assemblyperson Betty Chew today urged the party's former secretary-general Kerk Kim Hock to show proof of his allegations that party members linked to her and her husband Lim Guan Eng had sabotaged his campaign during the recently concluded general election.

Chew was responding to a statement by Kerk in The Star today in which he said that supporters of both Chew and Lim had campaigned against him in the election. Lim is the son of DAP icon and chairman, Lim Kit Siang.

Kerk lost the 35-year-old DAP stronghold on the Kota Melaka parliamentary seat to an MCA newcomer, Wong Nai Chee by a slim 219 majority votes. He decided to resign from the party's post after the election.

Kerk and Lim both refused to comment on the media report when contacted today. Chew, however, asked Kerk to "... stop discrediting those who worked voluntarily and tirelessly without any pay for him during the election."

"I have had enough of Kerk's continual baseless accusation that DAP members who are allegedly Lim Guan Eng's supporters had campaigned against Kerk in the Kota Melaka parliamentary seat," she said in a statement.

She, however, suggested that stern action be taken against such members if evidence could be provided.

Chew's Kota Laksamana constituency is one of the five state seats under the Kota Melaka parliamentary seat.

Chew claimed Kerk (right) would not have obtained a higher majority of votes from the Kota Laksamana constituency if her husband's supporters had campaigned against him.

"I had increased my majority to 3,642 votes in defeating MCA's Lim Eng Teck. But Kerk's parliamentary majority for Kota Laksamana is even higher than mine with a majority of 3,868 votes," she said.

Factional dispute

In another development, Lim was quoted in the vernacular Nanyang Siang Pau yesterday as dismissing as "mere rumours" media reports that his supporters had refused to put up Kerk's posters during election campaigning.

He revealed that there was a dispute between Kerk and a DAP member pertaining to the poster issue but it was resolved following his (Lim's) intervention. Kerk thanked him via an SMS, he claimed.

Lim was also quoted as saying that he sympathised with Kerk during this period as he, too, "had nothing" at one time. He expressed hope that Kerk would continue as the party's secretary-general post.

On Sunday, Kerk revealed during a press conference that infighting - manifested in certain party members discrediting him and refusing to put up his posters - had cost the DAP Kota Melaka.

Two days later, Melaka DAP chief Sim Tong Him asked the party central committee to resolve the factional dispute in Melaka once and for all, and investigate complaints that the loss of the Kota Melaka parliamentary seat was due to this.

Sim is openly leading a faction against another faction headed by Lim and Chew.