Gerakan gets ready for crucial assembly

Spotlight will be on embattled party president Koh Tsu Koon.

GEORGE TOWN: Gerakan delegates meet this weekend in an annual conference that is perhaps its most eagerly awaited in recent years. The general election is coming soon and observers are curious to see how prepared the party is, what with its leadership problems and the questions being raised about its future as a political organisation.

There is much anxiety over the future of embattled party president Koh Tsu Koon as well as over expectations from Barisan Nasional, especially Umno, for Gerakan to show that it is capable of recapturing the glory it once held.

Delegates will be questioning whether Koh has what it takes to lead Gerakan through the next election, helping the party win back the so-called “thinking” Chinese voters, as Umno wants it to.

Norman Zahalan, the deputy head of Penang Umno Youth, said BN needed a strong Gerakan to win votes in Penang, Perak and Selangor.

Gerakan, Malaysia’s first multiracial party, likes to think of itself as BN’s conscience. Professionals and community activists make up a large portion of its membership, and this differentiates it from Umno and MCA, where warlords hold much sway.

However, since being wiped out of its home base of Penang in the 2008 election, the party has had to search its own conscience for the answers to questions about its political relevance. These questions will doubtless be raised again during the conference, which will be held in Kuala Lumpur from Friday to Sunday.

Not too long ago, there were loud voices from within the party that questioned the relevance of Gerakan even remaining in BN. But these have lately been muted.

“I think Gerakan has witnessed with horror that Pakatan Rakyat is no better as a political entity; besides, PAS, DAP and PKR are also quarrelling among themselves,” said Jason Wong, who was born in Penang but is now a Singapore-based political observer.

He said Gerakan tended to behave more like a non-governmental organisation and less like a typical political party because it would often champion academic and intellectual issues as opposed to the bread-and-butter concerns of voters. It needed to change its approach, he added.

Wong Mun Hoe, who heads Gerakan’s Bayan Baru division, said the party must face the coming election as an event that will determine whether it will survive in Penang.

“I think we have done fairly well post-2008,” he said. “Some voters are warming up to us again after they realise that Pakatan is no angel.”

Survival at stake

Gerakan’s Pulau Tikus coordinator, Rowena Yam, agreed that Gerakan’s survival was at stake.

“I think we’ll have to be very lucky to recapture Penang,” she said. “But we must show that we can be an effective opposition.”

Essentially, the issues facing Gerakan are: its role in BN; its election strategy in Penang; Koh’s future; reconciliation with its longest-serving president, Dr Lim Keng Yaik; the closing of ranks among veterans; and whether it should give up Penang as its stronghold and move to other states more receptive to it.

Gerakan Youth vice-chairman Ong Khang Woon said the party seemed to be receiving more support in Kedah and Sabah.

But most eyes this weekend will be fixed on Koh.

Koh’s predicament is due to his inability to gain political mileage from his ministerial post and to overcome negative public perception about himself, which was made worse recently when he fell off his bicycle while out cycling with Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

He will have to address the questions of whether he will contest in the next election, whether he will give up the party presidency, and whether he will continue as a federal minister.

Both Yam and Mun Hoe speculated that he would remain at the helm of the party at least until the party elections next year.

“It is too late to change the ship’s captain and if a new one comes in, he may not have the time to change things for the better with a general election on the horizon,” Yam said.