When the dust settled on last weekend’s DAP leadership election, veteran party leader Ronnie Liu got a pleasant surprise.

He had not been confident of being retained by the party’s delegates but instead put a strong showing by garnering 1,070 votes and making it comfortably into the party’s central committee when a number of elected MPs failed to make the cut.

Sungai Pelek assemblyperson Liu has been with the party since the 1980s but had clashed with some of his fellow members and was even given a number of show cause letters by the party in 2019.

“I am not so surprised with my win, but surprised that my votes are high...