Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng announced that state executive members had approved the public declaration of their respective assets.

The details of the declaration will involved their assets before Pakatan Rakyat took office on March 8, 2008 and now - three years later.

The DAP national secretary general said the state exco hopes to publish this on the Internet within one month at the latest.

He added that running a clean government has brought about a new sense of confidence and optimism not just amongst the people but also amongst investors.

This confidence, he added, resulted in Penang topping investment in Malaysia for the first time in history last year with RM12.24 billion.

According to Lim, DAP’s greatest twin successes in the last 45 years was becoming a partner in government, especially in Penang, and proving its competency in providing good governance for it.

"When we were in the political wilderness, our leaders and members were not only hounded and persecuted by the BN government, we were also ridiculed and humiliated for daring to dream of a better Malaysia by replacing BN," he said at the DAP state convention here today.

"I would like to thank them for their important and historic roles in DAP’s march to power. Without their sacrifices and contributions we would not be where we are today," he stressed.

Hard to keep power

Lim’s speech is timely in the face of mounting conflict between the state DAP deputy chief P Ramasamy and national chief Karpal Singh.

The conflict heated up with supporters of Ramasamy protesting outside the convention venue this morning, which irked Karpal who gave a fiery speech castigating Ramasamy for his “godfather” remark.

In his speech, Lim reminded members that it was difficult to win power but retaining power was equally difficult.

  "We have to overcome not just our inexperience, but also our political opponents, as well as our supporters who doubted our ability to govern well.

"In our four years in power we have proven ourselves by treating all equally, regardless of race, religion, gender or political background," he added.

Lim reiterated that the Penang Pakatan state government will notimplement hudud. However it has increased allocations for Islam and also funded Sekolah Agama Rakyat.

He added that the state has provided fixed institutionalised funding for partially-assisted schools, set up a non-Muslim affairs Exco position and given land to schools and temples as well as at least RM1 million annually to the Hindu Endowment Board.