Speech by DAP Secretary-General and Member of Parliament for Bandar Melaka, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, when addressing members at Penang DAP headquarters on Monday, 13th March, 1972 at 8 p.m.
Call on Penang DAP to prepare to be the next Government of Penang
If there is general elections now in Penang, there is no doubt that the party which will secure the most number of seats and form the next Government will be the Democratic Action Party. This is why there is no fresh general elections, and why the Gerakan-Alliance Coalition Government was formed.
Both Dr. Lim Chong Yu and the Alliance leaders want the people of Penang to believe that the Coalition Government was formed in the best interest of the people and State of Penang.
But the people of Penang are not so naïve. In fact, they are one of the most sophisticated electorate in Malaysia.
The people of Penang will not easily forget that three years ago, they voted and made Dr. Lim Chong Yu Chief Minister of Penang because Dr. Lim promised solemnly to introduce a new brand of government – different and distinct from the first 10 years of Alliance government in Penang.
Three years later today, Dr. Lim brought back the Alliance – which the people overwhelmingly rejected in 1960 – to the seats of power and betrayed his election pledges and the hopes and trust of the people.
Dr. Lim himself knows that the people in the street are cursing him for his political treachery. This is why he dare not call fresh general elections. In fact, Dr. Lim’s stocks have fallen so low that it is the widespread belief of the people of Penang that should Dr. Lim contest in a general elections or a by-election in his own Kota State or Tanjong Parliamentary seat, he would lose both. When one remembers that only three years ago, Dr. Lim won Tanjong Parliamentary seat with a handsome 14000 majority, there is no more eloquent commentary on the fall in public esteem and regard Dr. Lim has suffered for his political dishonesty, inconsistency and inconstancy.
After Dr. Lim left the MCA 13 years ago in 1959, he told the country that he was then offered the post of Chief Minister of Penang but he rejected, because he aimed for higher things. Today, Dr. Lim is sacrificing the last vestiges of his political reputation to cling to the very position which 13 years ago he refused to accept. This is a good example of how deep and low the greats can fall if they do not have steadfast political principles.
Dr. Lim is now only a Chief Minister of Penang in name. He has only the shadow of power, without the substance.
It is Tun Tan Siew Sin and the Alliance members of the Coordinating Council who hold the string of power. When they pull the strings, Dr. Lim and his colleagues in the Gerakan will have to jump.
In fact, it would not be wrong to say that the government of Penang is no more a Gerakan State Government, but State Government of the Alliance, of the so-called young blood in the MCA.
The people of Penang and Malaysia will like to see what the young blood in the MCA, who talk so much in the press, can do in terms of deeds which can benefit the people. The people who are on trial in the Gerakan-Alliance Coalition Government are not Dr. Lim Chong Yu and the Gerakan – who have already being tried, tasted and found wanting, but the young blood in the MCA who are running the Penang Government from behind the scenes. This is why Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, Alex Lee and Lew Sip Hon, the so-called leaders of the so-called young blood in the MCA, frequently come to Penang.
The DAP is sure that the young blood of the MCA will be no different from the old Alliance blood which ruled Penang with such incompetency, inefficiency and blunders from 1959-1969.
The Penang DAP, every official and member, must prepare to be the next government of Penang for the DAP is the only real alternative to the Gerakan-Alliance coalition.