Wong Chen

Wong Chen was born in Assunta Hospital, Petaling Jaya in 1968 and spent his early childhood in Kuala Lumpur and Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Wong Chen’s father was a self-made businessman, whereas his mother was a homemaker. He has three siblings, two brothers and a sister. Although Wong Chen was born in Petaling Jaya, he spent much of his early years in Kota Bharu where his father’s business was based and this was also where he received his primary education. Wong Chen continued his studies by attending United World College of South East Asia in Singapore. Subsequently after completing secondary school, he furthered his academic education by reading Law and receiving his law degree from the University of Warwick.[2]

After graduating university, Wong Chen returned to his hometown of Kota Bharu and started practicing law. During his tenure in Kota Bharu, he also did community work by helping the rural poor and powerless through the local legal aid bureau. After spending five years back in his hometown, he then moved to Kuala Lumpur where he became a lawyer specialising in corporate law and information technology. It was during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis that he began to develop strong feelings within Malaysian politics especially in the wake of the Reformasi Movement.[2]

Wong Chen joined PKR in 2009 by accident. He was asked by a client to help the formation of Pakatan Rakyat and ended up joining the party as an ad-hoc advisor.[3] He acted as a lawyer and drafted the Pakatan Rakyat constitution and submitted documents to the ROS (Registrar of Societies). He started as an ad hoc advisor to the party and worked with Rafizi Ramli on GST. Later in 2011 he was appointed to become the chairman of the Investment and Trade Bureau of PKR.[2] He was put in charge of creating economic and trade policies for the party. In that capacity he gave press conference on a variety of subjects including FGV, 1MDB and palm oil exports.[4] He was one of the first politicians to speak out against 1MDB and in particular in the issue of 1MDB bonds in 2013.[5] The Financial Times interviewed him on the subject matter and described him as a "rising star of PKR".[6] Subsequently he was interviewed by Reuters, Asian Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

Wong Chen was first elected to parliament in the 13th Malaysian general election, winning the seat of Kelana Jaya by defeating National Front (BN) candidate Loh Seng Kok. After the general election, he became an MP and continued to speak on the wider variety of issues including GST, 1MDB and also the general economic landscape of Malaysia. As MP he also gave views on social and human rights issues including Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Sedition Act.[7]