Guan Eng’s grace under pressure

By admin on February 16th, 2010

A full turnout of the top brass of Pakatan Rakyat’s Penang contingent at Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s open house at Komtar Walk yesterday doused hopes that the insurgency of Zahrain Mohd Hashim was gaining ground.

The leading figures in the state PKR and PAS ranks, led by Deputy Chief Minister Mansor Othman and Mohd Sallehman respectively, backed by lesser lights from both parties, turned up early at the function which was graced by governor Abdul Rahman Abbas.

Attendance turned out to be a barometer of the popularity or the lack of open disgruntlement with Lim’s leadership felt by elements of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition, recently given public airing by Bayan Baru MP, Zahrain.

The former PKR state chief announced late last week that he had left the party to become a non-BN supporting independent, a move he portrayed as the culmination of long simmering tensions with Lim and consequent dissatisfaction with PKR’s way of coping with it.

Zahrain’s departure came after a fortnight of broadsides hurled at Lim by him and a coterie of Umno-inspired critics whose main complaint was that the CM had marginalised Malay economic interests and priorities.

The latest bullet in the fusillade was that the CM had canceled the Maulidur Rasul procession for this year which brought a prompt denial from both Lim and Abdul Malik Abul Kassim, the PKR executive council member in charge of religious affairs.

‘Nation’s centre of attention’

Lim was a fine fettle at the function he hosted yesterday, engaging in amiable banter with a reporter to whom he cracked: “You have come to the centre of attention in the country.”

“That’s a natural place for the press,” quipped the reporter.

Lim, in the crisis generated by Zahrain’s race-baiting salvoes, followed-up by attacks from Umno proxies such as the Penang Malay Chambers of Commerce, has eschewed his customary direct and combative refutation for low-key statistical and documentary rebuttals.

If action speaks louder than words, then calm resolve about one’s purpose and due diligence at the work required to achieve the aim, appeared to be Lim’s modus operandi.

The least that could be said of the strategy was that it does not add fuel to the fire, no matter how contrived the latter.

Asked about the effect that Zahrain’s darts at Lim have had on PKR, Sim Tze Tzin, the state assemblyperson for Pantai Jerejak, one of three PKR-held wards in Bayan Baru, was terse: “It’s having no impact.”

Sim surveyed the ease with which DAP, PKR and PAS officials mingled at the open house and added: “This is the evidence.”

If appearances are not deceptive, it was hard to gainsay the young PKR rep.

MalaysiaKini - Terence Netto – Feb 15, 10
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/124430

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