A Malaysian Cabinet minister resigned yesterday after film of him having sex with a woman who was not his wife was distributed to shops and homes throughout his constituency. Chua Soi Lek who, as Malaysia’s Health Minister, preached the virtues of fidelity in fighting Aids, resigned a day after admitting that he was the man featured in 100 minutes of video footage.

The assignation appeared to have been filmed secretly without Dr Chua’s knowledge, using four separate cameras concealed in an hotel room. Apart from the damage to the Malaysian Government, it has raised concerns that it will scare off tourists, concerned about security and privacy in the country’s hotels.

“After I made my confession, I had hoped Malaysians would be able to accept my apology,” Dr Chua told a press conference yesterday. “Unfortunately, from the feedback I received, I observed that Malaysians cannot accept it. Some Malaysians have a holier-than-thou attitude. At the end of the day, it tells you that honesty sometimes does not pay.

“If you want to discuss my private life, please do,” he added sarcastically. “Maybe you would like to watch the videotape with me.”

Dr Chua’s honesty in identifying himself as the man on the tape, which was dropped into letterboxes in his election district, had not been matched by openness with his wife and three children.

He identified the woman in the tape as “a personal friend”, and implied that it had been secretly made by political enemies.

“I would like to emphasise that I did not make the tape myself,” he said at his first press conference on Tuesday. “Who made this tape is not important any more. What is most important is that my family, wife and children have accepted my apology.”

Dr Chua had been Health Minister in the coalition Government of Abdullah Badawi, the Prime Minister, since 2004. At the Malaysian national Aids conference a month ago he said: “Abstinence is still the best way. And be faithful to your partner. It also boils down to both partners being responsible. Do not blame anybody.” As one of Malaysia’s most senior ethnic Chinese politicians, he was part of the country’s often tense efforts to balance the interests of the ethnic Malay majority with the large and affluent Chinese minority.

Throughout South-East Asia, local Chinese populations are the object of ill-feeling and occasional violence because of their dominance of business. Malaysia has dealt with the problem by a programme of positive discrimination in favour of Malays – which in its turn has created Chinese resentment.

Last night websites and bulletin boards had already been posted with antiChinese racism, including a video juxtaposing reports of Dr Chua’s adultery with footage of mating pigs.

Newspapers reported that police are investigating the circumstances in which the two black-and-white recordings, one of 56 minutes and one of 44 minutes, were made. They were said to be two years old and appear to have been made in an hotel.

“How is it that someone could easily enter a hotel room and install a camera?” questioned one writer in the Malay Mail.

“Of course, there is the possibility that they may have been aided by an insider but that remains to be seen. This could spark worry among hotel occupants like tourists.”

Caught out

— Chu Mei-feng was forced to resign as a Taipei city councillor in 2002 after a friend secretly recorded a 40-minute tape of her and her married lover. She reappeared as a singer in Singapore, and Taiwanese lingerie makers reported a rise in sales of the white thong in which she had been pictured

— Yahya Zaini, parliamentary secretary of the Indonesian Golkar party, was forced to resign last year after a sex tape featuring him and a popular singer, Maria Eva, was circulated via mobile phone and the internet

— Last year Abdul Razak Baginda, a close adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, was charged with the murder of his former lover, a Mongolian model named Altantuya Shaariibuu. His wife was pictured in a T-shirt reading “Mrs Razak Baginda”. On the back it said “and proud of it”

— In 2004 Anwar Ibrahim, a former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, was freed after serving six years in jail for corruption and sodomy

Source: Times archives