Wee Choo Keong

Wee Choo Keong (simplified Chinese: 黄朱强; traditional Chinese: 黃朱強; pinyin: Huáng Zhū Qiáng; born 26 June 1953) is a Malaysian politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Bukit Bintang from 1990 to 1995 and for Wangsa Maju from 2008 to 2013. Wee has been a member of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), the Malaysian Democratic Party (MDC) which he formed, and the People's Justice Party (PKR) which he tried to join before turning independent eventually. Wee was appointed by the government as Tourism Malaysia chairperson on 17 June 2015 for being Barisan Nasional-friendly.

Democratic Action Party

Wee started his political career as a member of the DAP and in 1990 was elected as member of parliament for the Kuala Lumpur Bandar constituency (later renamed Bukit Bintang).

In 1993, an injunction was issued against Wee and two other defendants from "printing, circulating or publishing any allegation of impropriety about the companies" after a case was brought by MBf alleging the defendants "unlawfully conspired with each other with the predominant purpose of injuring the companies by unlawful means". MBf later applied to have the defendants (including Wee) held in contempt of court for failing to obey the injunction. The application succeeded against Wee and another of his co-defendants and Wee was eventually ordered to pay a RM7,000 fine on appeal. The injunction against Wee brought by MBf was set aside in 2007 with the Court of Appeal ruling "The injunction was too wide in its terms and almost oppressive". He later sought damages against MBf and AmBank (who had acquired MBf) for loss of income due his inability to be an MP and the damage to his professional standing as a lawyer.

Wee was removed from the Kuala Lumpur Bandar seat in 1995 after a controversial court case which nullified his re-election that year due to the fine he had received. He was ejected from the DAP in 1998 after being accused of damaging the party's image and went on to form the Malaysian Democratic Party (MDP). He later attempted to join Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) but was rejected by the party who stated at the time they did not want renegades from DAP. Due to the ruling against him in the 1995 court case, he was unable to contest the 1999 election. He contested the 2004 elections but did not even receive enough votes to keep his deposit. Wee Choo Keong was later referred to by V.K. Lingam in the Lingam tape. After the video tape was made public in 2007, Wee stated he intended to file for judicial review of the 1995 decision. Later, he also lodged a report with Suhakam over the tape arguing it demonstrated his human rights had been infringed.

People's Justice Party (PKR)

Before the 2008 election, although still a member of the MDP, he was invited to join the PKR under the de facto leadership of Anwar Ibrahim and contest the Wangsa Maju constituency which he later won with a slim majority of 150.

In May 2010, Wee left PKR to sit in Parliament as an independent, citing disappointment with the PKR-led state government in Selangor's handling of the Dengkil sand mining scandal and what he called "little Napoleons and trendy leftists" taking control of the party. He did not recontest his seat in the 2013 election.