DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng dismissing the view that he and Penang chief minister Chow Kon Yeow are at loggerheads, by claiming that “such imaginary plots are manufactured by those with vested or personal interests or those intolerant of a healthy discussion of public policies that benefit the rakyat” is strictly for the birds.
Of course, Lim Guan Eng and Chow Kon Yeow are at loggerhead. More than just bickering, it should be as clear as daylight by now that Lim is actively plotting to overthrow Chow Kon Yeow .
I am not the only one to think that. Dap insiders think that. Chow Kon Yeow also has already raised the alarm by saying that Lim Guan Eng is trying to topple him. Granted that Chow did not name Lim directly, but I will go out on a limb and speculate that it is Lim that Chow meant.
Lim Guan Eng is no Cincinnatus. He is no George Washington. He is not going to give up his power and position to mind his own business once his job is done.
Lim Guan Eng is a typical Malaysian politician. What this means is that he doesn't think that being a leader is a job, he thinks that being a leader is his identity.
If you think that being a leader is a job, when your job is done, you won’t see yourself as a leader anymore.
Lim Guan Eng, though, is more of a leader in the mold of Mahathir. These people see being a leader as a part of their identity. They expect to be at the top and obeyed by everybody because that is just how they see themselves. They won’t know who they are unless they are obeyed and followed by a multitude of people. These sorts of leaders won’t vacate their spot until the day they kick the bucket.
If this was the old Dap, like Guan Eng could have possibly been satisfied just being an MP and the chairman of Dap.
The old dap did not rule a state or play a pivotal role in the federal government. The old Dap survived by the donation it collected in milo tin cans from its supporters during its ceramah rounds. To be seen as the leader of the old DAP, all Lim Guan Eng had to do was be daring. All he had to do was just condemn and criticize the government of the day even at the risk of being ISA-ed, and he would have been hailed as the chief by the Dap rank and file.
The Dap today though is a different beast altogether.
This dap not only rules and controls state and federal governments, it is involved in multi-billion-ringgit projects.
In this Dap, slamming the government of the day is not only insufficient to make one be seen as a leader, it would even be considered a case of friendly fire, because the government of the day is made up of Dap and its allies.
Today, Lim Guan Eng can't even fire at his favorite targets like Wee Ka Siong, Zahid Hamidi or Najib anymore, because they are all on the same side. To make it worse, he can’t even open fire on opposition figures like Muhyiddin, Mahathir or Hadi Awang either, because in the state of politics that we are in, if he fires aggressively against these Malay leaders in the opposition, he will be accused of raising racial tension in the country unnecessarily.
So where does that leave Lim Guan Eng today?
Well, if Lim Guan Eng is a person who sees being a leader as a job, this would be a sign that his job is done. He had led Dap out of the wilderness, and now it is time to pass the torch to the next generation, who are more equipped to lead Dap in its next stage of evolution.
But since Lim Guan Eng is not such a Leader, he is likely going to behave more like Mahathir.
Just like how Mahathir expects everybody he appointed to be perpetually "grateful" to him, and still treat him like the alpha male of the group, even when he no longer has anything valuable to contribute to the group, Lim Guan Eng will also expect the same.
If those whom he deems should be grateful to him don’t pay him obeisance, he is going to take umbrage, perceive them as being ungrateful, see their ingratitude as a form of betrayal, and then convince himself that he has the right to topple them and retract the titles and position that he has previously bestowed them.
Mahathir toppled everybody from Anwar to Pak Lah to Najib because he believed that they had been ungrateful to him.
The chances are high that Lim Guan Eng will do the same to Chow if Chow doesn’t give up the CM of Penang post to Lim Guan Eng or toe the line to Lim Guan Eng’s wishes.
Lim Guan Eng has to act in this way, because without his identity as the supreme leader of Dap, Lim Guan Eng is nothing.
At least Lim Guan Eng's father, Lim Kit Siang, has intellectual credentials. After he gave up his position as the Dap supremo, Lim Kit Siang could at least look forward to spending the rest of his life as a writer.
Lim Guan Eng on the other hand, has no equivalent skill set. He can't run a business, play a musical instrument, write, teach, make a movie, farm, lecture or conduct research. He likely can't even be a family man, because his own family might not look at him the same way if he is not the leader of Dap.
At the end of the day, you can never underestimate one's ability to take one's own side.
Lim Guan Eng might deny that he has a problem with Chow, and even Chow can be pressured to retract the claim that there is a move to ouster him from his position as the CM of Penang, but how long can we expect Lim Guan Eng to live without being able to feel like himself?
Right now the only question is how is Lim Guan Eng going to oust Chow Kon Yeow?
From what I can see, the attempt to oust Chow will likely come legally and by means of office politics. There was already an attempt to implicate Chow in a land deal. From the passive aggressive way that Lim and Chow bickered in the recently concluded Penang State Assembly, we can also see that Lim will be attempting to portray Chow as incompetent, clueless and unfit to hold the job as the CM of Penang.
Personally, I think that Lim should stop trying to portray Chow as incompetent or clueless, because to be frank, nobody sees him as the sharpest tool in the shed either, after his disastrous stint as the finance minister. Even if Chow is clueless and incompetent, Lim is not going to be the one who will be able to prove it, because he is no touring genius himself.
They say that PMX Anwar Ibrahim is going to organize a cabinet reshuffle soon. If Anwar doesn’t want DAP, the strongest partner in the unity government to implode, maybe it is time that Anwar offered Chow a cabinet position.
Just because he cannot offer Lim Guan Eng a cabinet position, it doesn’t mean he can’t offer it to Chow, and settle the quarrel between these two DAP leaders.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.
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