After making two attempts to retire from politics over the past few years, Gerakan president Dr Lim Keng Yaik now says that he is waiting for "inspiration" to do it for the third time, and to make sure it works.

"The succession plan is there. [The implementation] depends on the situation. Our prime minister has made his choice. I have also voiced it out before but if members still think I should lead them and if they can give 1,001 reasons, then I must stay," he said.

He said he would have wanted to resign as both Primary Industries Minister and Gerakan president but the party's central committee had refused to let him go.

"I will try for the third time when I have the ilham (inspiration). The ilham is not here yet. Maybe one day when I sit down, it will come.

"Don't worry, the time will come. I will talk to the central committee and tell them that I don't care [and want to go]," he told a press conference after the opening of Gerakan's 31st National Delegates Conference in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon.

Longest serving leader

Lim, the longest serving leader of Gerakan, has announced twice since 1997 that he wanted to step down from the helm.

Last week, at the nomination for the party's triennial elections, he was returned unopposed as the party president for the eighth term since 1980.

Lim, 63, had also announced that he would run for the next general election due 2004.

He said he could not go just yet because the members and central committee felt that his experience was vital during the transitional period when Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad passes his mantle to Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi next October.

In his presidential speech this morning, Lim urged some 1,300 delegates to continue with the party's non-racial struggle to work towards progressive politics which is above and beyond race, religion, and cultural differences.

He warned that Malaysian politics is experiencing "tremendous assaults from communal and theocratic political influences".

Be wary of opposition tactics

"The tactics deployed by PAS and the opposition to win support will inadvertently create rifts in our society through their messages and actions," he said.

He said the introduction of hudud law in Terengganu by the PAS state government recently was both unconstitutional and insensitive to the general feelings of a multiracial society.

Lim also called on party members to continue trusting the "steady hands and rational minds" with the future of Malaysia.

Developing communication technologies and cultivating a knowledge-based society through a sound education system are important if Malaysians were to gear themselves up for globalisation which poses more threats than benefits to developing nations, he said.

The Gerakan chief also renewed his call on the government to declare Sept 16 the National Unity Day or Malaysia Day in commemoration of the Bangsa Malaysia vision.