IT was not exactly an earthquake but delegates at the Penang DAP convention might have felt a tremor when one of the two candidates for the Chief Minister post ended up near the bottom.
Deputy Finance Minister Lim Hui Ying was widely expected to secure the top spot in the party’s Penang election and jaws dropped when she ended up at No 12 in the 15-person leadership line-up.
It was quite a blow to the aspirations of the Lim family to position her as the next Chief Minister of Penang. Her contender for the job Human Resources Minister Steven Sim came in at No 2, thereby placing him in pole position.
Sim got 1,237 votes whereas Hui Ying garnered 827 votes. It meant that Hui Ying, despite her government position and famous family name, managed to get only 56% of the votes from the 1,466 delegates.
This was despite the tireless campaign by her brother and former chief minister Lim Guan Eng in the last few weeks.
Party secretary-general Anthony Loke had also vouched for Sim to be the next state chairman and for Hui Ying to continue as party secretary although it seemed like a less than subtle signal of who he thought was more suitable to succeed Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow.
But Penang delegates had their own idea of who they wanted - they picked Sim but pushed Hui Ying aside.
It was crystal clear that the delegates wanted a balance of power, without any one side dominating the party.
As such, three of the winners were people aligned to Chow - Komtar assemblyman Teh Lai Heng and former assemblymen Yeoh Soon Hin and Soon Lip Chee.
The DAP election system involves delegates voting for a 15-person line-up who then decide behind closed-doors to choose the chairman and other key office-bearers.
Bukit Gelugor MP Ramkarpal Singh emerged at the No 1 spot because of who his father is and also because he was not blindly associated with either side. But some said he won big because he did not pose a threat to anyone or any camp.
His elder brother Jagdeep Singh Deo, who is Deputy Chief Minister, did not make it. Jagdeep’s personal issues has become the stuff of kopitiam chatter and his defeat was the second biggest upset after Hui Ying’s placing.
The infighting and especially Guan Eng’s aggressive campaign to dominate the election with his loyalists obviously did not go down well in the party.
They also did not like how Guan Eng had made life difficult for Chow to the extent that he is dubbed the “state opposition leader”. And since Guan Eng did not contest the election, delegates took out on his sister.
“A vote for Hui Ying was a vote for Guan Eng. That was what dragged her down,” said a DAP grassroots figure.
Hui Ying is too tightly tied to the family’s apron strings. She has failed to convince people that she is up there because of her ability and is more famous for her endless selfies and wefies than for her opinions on issues.
People are also puzzled how the Deputy Minister is able to spend so much time in Penang.
Delegates also seem to have heeded the call by former Sungai Puyu assemblyman Datuk Seri Phee Boon Poh to ensure that each of the parliamentary constituencies held by DAP is represented in the state leadership line-up.
This election marked the rise of Boon Poh as the new kingmaker. He is a superb Hokkien orator whose reputation dates back to the years when he was the lone DAP survivor in the state assembly.
His family owned a printing plant that Barisan Nasional patronised to print election posters. The problem, he used to say, was that “you have to chase them for payment”.
He has advised his daughter Phee Syn Tze, who is now an assemblyman and who came in at No 9 in the polls, to focus on her constituency work and not to be overly ambitious.
However, his younger brother Phee Boon Chee who came in at No 13, is the new state organising secretary which is a recognition of the family’s political network.
Despite Guan Eng’s setback, almost two-thirds of those who won are aligned to him although several of his loyalists lost including one who was famous for ferrying Guan Eng around his Air Putih constituency on a motorcycle.
Many noticed that Guan Eng did not hang around to watch Sim carry out his first press conference as the new state chairman.
Guan Eng, who is the national DAP chairman, is an astute politician who would have read the writing on the wall and he needs to scale back on his attacks against Chow.
In one of those ironies of politics, the person who emerged safe and sound from the election was actually the person who did not contest and that was Chow.
Chow hardly broke a smile at the opening of the state convention even as top leaders paid tribute to and heaped praises on him. He was probably feeling cynical because some of those praising him - one of them almost cried - were those who had tried to undermine him.
The fact that delegates put Hui Ying in her place and showed another potential Chief Minister candidate Wong Hong Wai the door suggests that the party does not want any more trouble for Chow who is likely to be appointed state DAP advisor.
“The message is very clear. Chow is not exceptional but they like him. They want him to go on till his term expires. As for the incoming man, the undercurrents are not over. There could be troubled waters if he is not careful,” said former DAP politician Jeff Ooi.
The Penang polls were a wake-up call for the Lim family and it is unclear how brother and sister intend to survive the next big battle - the national DAP election in March next year.
> The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own
