KUALA LUMPUR - THE Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), the second biggest party in the country's ruling coalition, looks set to be jolted by two developments seen as signs of an increasingly fractious party. Both involve senior party officials.

Party veteran and former health minister Chua Jui Meng, 65, resigned on Thursday as head of the division he has led for 23 years.

Separately, the current deputy president, Dr Chua Soi Lek, was summoned to appear before a party disciplinary committee over a sex scandal involving him more than a year ago.

Mr Chua, reported to be unhappy about the infighting in the Johor Bakri division, stepped down as its head at an emergency meeting of the division on Thursday night.

At the meeting, he dismissed talk that he was also quitting the party to join the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR). He said he had been linked to such rumours for several years and claimed that he was once approached by an opposition party.

He was quoted by The Star as saying he had no intention of leaving the MCA and would continue to fight for reforms within the party. Mr Chua had twice run unsuccessfully for the party's top post, most recently last year, against current MCA president Ong Tee Keat.

The strife in his Bakri division was played out in public last month when Dr Chua, a fellow Johor politician, highlighted it in his blog, saying that the infighting was bad for the MCA.

That prompted an angry response from Mr Chua, who accused Dr Chua of instigating party members to go against him, thereby causing MCA Johor to lose two seats in the last general election.

Dr Chua, also a former health minister, in the meantime found himself under the spotlight again, with reports saying on Thursday that he and several other members had been issued with a notice to appear before the MCA's disciplinary board on Aug 4.

The issue? The sex video that led to his political downfall. In January last year, Dr Chua resigned from all his political posts after video clips of a sexual tryst with his mistress were circulated.

Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.

chengwee@sph.com.sg