by Stephen Tan, in MySinChew, 17 Mar 2008
The Opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) is now enjoying the
electoral euphoria that the Gerakan experienced on May 10, 1969, but
the latter was summarily consigned to political oblivion after a
period of slightly less than 39 years.
A succinct difference between the respective Gerakan and DAP victories
of 1969 and 2008 may be this: The Gerakan won on a positive vote while
the DAP won on a negative vote. To elaborate, the vote for the Gerakan
was a vote for the then Dr (now Tun) Lim Chong Eu to be the next Chief
Minister. The vote for the DAP was a vote against Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu
Koon for what he himself termed as his “intangible” successes.
The 2008 decision was never a vote for the colourful Lim Guan Eng as
the successor to the colourless Tsu Koon. Lim, an accountant trained
in Australia’s prestigious Monash University, showed his formidable
character when he gamely took the fall, was imprisoned for 18 months
on a legal technicality for championing the cause of a Malay girl who
was allegedly raped by a senior politician in Malacca, and was
consequently denied electoral participation for the next five years
according to Malaysian law after being declared guilty.
Last Question
The last question that the Penang electorate posed in the 1969
election was never asked, simply because the Gerakan could not present
a name after putting up incumbent Deputy Information Minister Chia
Kwang Chye as an alternative to Tsu Koon, who was being fielded for
the parliamentary seat of Batu Kawan.
The above observation is drawn from the historical fact that the last
question put to the then Opposition Gerakan before Penangites voted in
1969 was who its Chief Minister would be. When the Gerakan responded
in the then The Straits Echo that it would be the State’s famous son
Chong Eu, the unique Penang swing began. The Straits Echo, billed as
the second oldest English language newspaper east of Suez, has since
closed down as The National Echo.
“From there on, according to insiders, the Gerakan never recovered
from this self-inflicted fracture, but lost its cohesiveness as a
political party.”
It was never lost on Penangites that Chong Eu, himself an
overseas-trained medical doctor, was the scion of a famous Penang
family. Indeed, Penangites take pride in the fact that while the
Gerakan had Chong Eu, the left-leaning Socialist Front had
England-trained lawyer Lim Kean Siew (since deceased) and the previous
Alliance administration led by the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA)
had England-trained lawyer David Choong Ewe Leong. All three are
scions of landed gentry in the State. David Choong, who was an All
England doubles champion in his time, is now comatose.
Interestingly, this opening gambit of the Gerakan during the heat of
the election was simply outmaneuvered when a so-called Chinese clan
leader was inspired to assert that Kwang Chye was unacceptable to the
Penang Chinese Town Hall because he was not Chinese-educated!
What was conveniently forgotten in the maneuver inspired by the
intense Gerakan infighting was that Chong Eu was never
Chinese-educated when he assumed office as Chief Minister of Penang in
1969. Nonetheless, this episode brought to the fore the reduced
leadership role of the English-educated Chinese not just in Penang,
but also throughout the country. Significantly, the MCA, another
component of the ruling National Front, met reverses after it ignored
the English-educated in its line-up.
Almost reeling from this self-induced shock, Tsu Koon not only bandied
three names – incumbent State Executive Councillors Dr Teng Hock Nan
and Teng Chang Yeow as well as parliamentary secretary Lee Kah Choon
who was being fielded in the blue ribbon Gerakan state seat of Machang
Bubuk – but purportedly left the decision on which of the three to
National Front president and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi.
Glaring Failure
This glaring Gerakan failure played right into the hands of the DAP.
It lent credence to the oft-denied DAP view that Tsu Koon never
wielded power. That DAP message boomeranged when it was put in the
clumsy DAP slogan of “CM with power” when Guan Eng’s father,
Opposition icon Lim Kit Siang, made his previous bid for power in the
State. Kit Siang’s bid proved abortive after the National Front then
responded by stating that Kit Siang was “gila pangkat” or power crazy.
That was in the previous election. In the present one, the DAP not
only made political capital out of the Gerakan mis-step on the
“required” Chinese education background for the Penang chief
ministership and what the Penang Hokkiens simply punned on the trio as
the “tua teng, kah seh teng boh lee” or “Big Teng or small Teng, no
play” – a Hokkien saying that also meant a big car and small car, and
lee (Kah Choon’s surname), meaning play – it was able to win the state
chief executive’s job by stealth since it never had to respond to the
last question.
Perhaps unknown even to the DAP leaders, this signal failure that Tsu
Koon committed spelled the end of cooperation between the three
competitors he named for the top job. Worse still, it is understood to
also have led to Tsu Koon, a Hokkien Chinese, being threatened by an
incumbent Teo Chew (or Ching Chow, a dialectic group) leader with a
loss of the significant Teo Chew votes in his Batu Kawan parliamentary
constituency.
From there on, according to insiders, the Gerakan never recovered from
this self-inflicted fracture, but lost its cohesiveness as a political
party.
Lost Vision
From this 2008 general election, the Opposition DAP now has a period
four to five years’ opportunity to translate the stated negative vote
into a positive one. If Guan Eng can provide a stable Government and
perform up to Penang expectations, it should continue to hold power at
the State level.
Of course, the 2008 Malaysian general election has proved that the
Gerakan lost its evangelical drive after nearly 39 years, even with
its opting in 1973 to become part of the ruling National Front
coalition.
It had earlier perceived to have lost the vision of Gerakan founder
Chong Eu of making Georgetown, billed as the first and oldest
Chinatown in the world by a well-known television programme, into a
thriving city. Instead, Georgetown became a ghost city, underscoring
the growing social gap betwen Tsu Koon and his illustrious household
name predecessor.
This ugly spectre of empty reclaimed houses came after the Sir John
Maynard Keynes-inspired post-war rent-control measures were dismantled
in 1999 or thereabouts. The way the policy was implemented – with no
alternative housing for many of the dislocated who were left homeless
– virtually exposed the political dissonance of the Gerakan-led State
Government under the leadership of Tsu Koon.
It is common knowledge that while Penang can provide the maternity
hospital of aspiring political leaders and their parties, it can also
act as a cemetery for them. The Tsu Koon-led Gerakan is Penang’s
latest casualty.