Subscribe to our FREE Newsletter, or Telegram and WhatsApp channels for the latest stories and updates.

Losing a state seat is never a good look.

But in DAP, it does not have to mean losing everything else.

Anthony Loke Siew Fook, DAP secretary-general and MP for Rasah, announced last night (3 August) that he is stepping down as chairman of the party’s Negeri Sembilan chapter — days after losing the Chennah state seat, a seat he had held for three consecutive terms.

The same meeting that accepted his resignation also unanimously backed him to remain as the party’s national secretary-general.

He gave up the smaller chair.

He kept the bigger one.

One Door Closed, The Other Held Shut

Loke had signalled the state resignation was coming — he said before the results were cold that he would “consider stepping down” as Negeri Sembilan chairman, and that he followed through is not the surprise.

DAP lost two seats on Saturday (1 August), one of them Chennah — his ground, his three-term stronghold, the voters who knew him longest.

The central executive committee met, deliberated, and concluded: unanimous support.

But the bigger question does not get resolved by a CEC vote — on 16 August, DAP holds its national congress, where a formal motion will put to delegates the question of whether the party stays in the federal unity government until the end of the parliamentary term, or walks away.

For delegates, it is less a procedural vote than an internal referendum on what government participation has cost the party — and whether that cost was worth it.

Loke keeps his chair; what he does with it may depend on what the congress decides.

Too Big for Chennah?

Loke lost Chennah by 688 votes — but the margin tells only part of the story.

The grievances were local and personal — residents felt they had a part-time assemblyman who was too busy running a ministry and a national party to show up for a rural constituency, and his opponent, BN’s Siow Kong Choon, campaigned hard on being exactly the opposite: a full-time, boots-on-the-ground representative with deep family roots in the area.

Compounding that was a damaging rumour — never proven, and firmly denied by Loke — that he had interfered in the sacred Adat Perpatih customary institutions and meddled in a royal chieftaincy dispute, a narrative that landed hard in traditional Malay kampungs and FELDA settlements where trust in such institutions runs deep.

The grievance regarding traffic compounds is also a critical local flashpoint.

Still, DAP won 9 of the 11 seats it contested that same night — and a secretary-general who delivers that result does not get removed; he gets asked to stay.

@edisisiasah

Anthony Loke tewas di DUN Chennah Anthony Loke yang merupakan Adun Chennah selama tiga penggal kalah kepada calon BN Siow Kong Choon BN memperolehi 5,418 undi berbanding Loke hanya mendapat 4,927 undi sahaja sekaligus Siow menang dengan majoriti kurang 500 undi. – Kredit video Youtube : @TeamJebatDerhakaMalaysia

♬ bunyi asal – Edisi Siasah

READ MORE: Anthony Loke Lost The South, Now They’re Asking About The North

Share your thoughts with us via TRP’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Threads.