KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA — In the U.S., porn stars become pop-culture icons and run for governor of California.In Malaysia, they resign from public office when their secret lives are revealed.
At least they’re not duplicitous about the facts, as some American politicians have been.
Malaysian Health Minister Chua Soi Lek, 61, stepped down from his appointed position in the cabinet of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Wednesday after admitting he was the man in a one-hour sex video distributed anonymously on DVD last week. He also resigned from his elected positions in parliament and as vice-president of the Malaysian Chinese Association political party.
Although Chua issued a public apology for embarrassing the Badawi government during an election year, he declined to bow before public condemnation of his morals or his performance with a reportedly much-younger woman who is not his wife.
“Some Malaysians have a holier-than-thou attitude,” Chua told a correspondent for the London newspaper The Independent. “I think that anyone who is a leader has to be responsible for his mistakes or weaknesses. I feel proud — at least I dared to admit it. I never said that it was not me [on the DVD]. I never even said that it was doctored.”
Malaysia, where the state religion is Islam although other religions are represented, takes a dim view of the affair officially.
“As a minister, [Chua] has committed an act that cannot be accepted by society, instead of being a leader who maintains his integrity,” Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party official Mahfuz Omar told The Independent.
The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party is one of several opposition groups that frequently raise allegations of immorality and misconduct against government officials.
Chua said the tape was filmed secretly, possibly by political rivals. Much as in the U.S., scandals often fuel the action in Malaysian political circles, according to the secretary general of the Democratic Action Party.
“Power struggles… are common in the jostling for positions before general elections, which benefit individual selfish interests at the expense of public interests,” Lim Guan Eng told The Independent.
Chua, who had served in Malaysia’s parliament since 2004, was the highest-ranking politician to be caught in a sex scandal since 2000, when popular former Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was sentenced to nine years in prison for sodomizing his chauffeur. In 2004, a court overturned Ibrahim’s conviction, which Ibrahim insisted was part of a conspiracy to kill his career.
