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Ong Kian Ming resigned from DAP effective today (31 Aug), the 69th anniversary of Merdeka.
He is not joining another party and is not contesting GE16.
The former deputy minister and Bangi MP stated both positions explicitly in a Facebook post addressed directly to DAP Secretary-General Anthony Loke.
What he is doing: honouring a promise made in January to campaign for former Health Minister and ex-UMNO Youth Chief Khairy Jamaluddin, if Khairy is given a seat to contest in the next general election.
He gave no official reason for leaving after 14 years in the party.
DAP Chairman Gobind Singh Deo, when asked about the resignation during National Day celebrations, declined to comment.
It was, he said, not a day for politics.
No Press Conference, No Name, Just a Proverb
Loke did not issue a press statement.
He posted a proverb on Facebook: Habis madu, sepah dibuang.
Once the honey is consumed, the dregs are thrown away.
He did not name Ong.
The friction had a prior chapter.
During an internal DAP debate, Ong argued that the party should consider withdrawing from the federal Cabinet to pressure Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to deliver on promised political reforms.
The party voted to remain in government.
Malaysia’s Political Nostradamus Places His Biggest Bet Yet
Within hours, the post became the single most-shared reaction to Ong’s resignation, with the public splitting sharply between those who read it as a dignified rebuke and those who felt it confirmed everything they suspected about how DAP treats its own.
Hardline supporters cited it as proof that Ong had extracted what he needed from the party — a platform, a career, a national profile — and departed the moment a more personally compelling project came along.
Critics of DAP flipped the proverb entirely, arguing that the party, not Ong, had consumed its talent and discarded it when inconvenient.
The irony was not lost on observers: a secretary-general who declined to comment publicly had, in one proverb, commented more loudly than any press statement could.
Loke did not clarify the post.
The silence held.
People are paying attention because a man with a documented record of accurate political predictions just walked away from a 14-year party affiliation to back a currently positionless politician as a future Prime Minister.
That either reads as a bold, long-horizon bet — or as the most expensive friendship in Malaysian politics.
READ MORE: PH Kept Governing As The Votes Left, Now The Votes Have Run Out
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