Guan Eng aces Tsu Koon at open house
The Penang Chinese Town Hall's New Year open house is a traditionally non-partisan affair at which the Chinese business community as hosts subliminally gets across the message that their concerns transcend politics.
The Penang Chinese Town Hall's New Year open house is a traditionally non-partisan affair at which the Chinese business community as hosts subliminally gets across the message that their concerns transcend politics.
Accordingly, the PCTH are at pains to invite every shade of political opinion extant on the island to their festive gathering, the better to get the word across that while political powers come and go, their businesses are here to stay.
Yesterday's open house, hosted on their premises in the solidly Chinese ethnic quarter of Georgetown, saw Gerakan president and federal cabinet minister Koh Tsu Koon sharing equal billing with Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng of the DAP, with governor Rahman Abbas, as guest of honour, holding the apolitical balance with a finesse for which he is now an acknowledged adept.
The governor has a good word for all comers. A tacitly spoken greeting to Anwar Ibrahim, de facto leader of the opposition coalition that rules Penang who was also present, had the latter regretting that thus far his busy schedule precluded him joining the affable governor for a tete-a-tete over lunch. 
Politics being a pervasive temptation, the speeches, after PCTH chairman Lam Wu Chong's opening one of welcome was over, veered to the arena that the business component of the audience studiously avoids by reason of the bipartisan range of their invitees' list.
Koh, who had the lectern after Lam, started the slide towards the brink.
In his speech, the former CM talked up federal-Penang state relations which he held to be good and beneficial to the people since the time of his predecessor, Dr Lim Chong Eu.
He said federal benevolence towards Penang had brought development and prosperity to the state and to the nation.
His subtext was obvious: Penangites have no reason to spurn a hand that has been nothing if not beneficent to them.
What applause Koh received was tepid and polite, the points he attempted to convey contrasting feebly with the bright red motifs of the décor in the PCTH reception room.
CM on the horns of dilemma
When Guan Eng's turn to speak arrived immediately after Koh's, the CM was placed squarely on the horns of a delicate dilemma.
Either he attempted a demurral of his predecessor's not-so-subtle chastisement of implied ingratitude, or he resorted to the platitudes customary on an occasion like this one.
In the event, Guan Eng preferred the safety of complimenting the wisdom of the people of Penang and their right to exercise choice to the vaguer temptations of homiletics that can go astray.
He said his government would leverage on democratic choice to empower, enrich and endow the people of Penang.
On federal-state relations, he said these were symbiotic and any government ignoring that reality would be opting for a winless situation.
He said increased prosperity for Penang would redound to the advantage of federal coffers, hence a beggar-the-state or beggar-the-feds policy would be patently unwise.
The speech was punctuated by rounds of applause that reached a crescendo when Guan Eng referred to Anwar, seated unobtrusively in a maroon Confucian-style shirt.
Later, the PKR supremo, in speaking to party stalwarts in Permatang Pauh, used the occasion as grist for his argument that the popularity of Pakatan was dependent on policies that placed the interests of the people above elites.
He said the contrast in the receptions to Koh's and Guan Eng's speeches spoke eloquently of the competing coalitions' respective standings among the people, if not in the nation at large then at least in Penang state.
