Kit Siang may opt for safe seat in Perak

While there are reports that DAP leader Lim Kit Siang will contest in Penang, there is an increasing likelihood that the opposition party's strongman may opt for the safe seat of Batu Gajah in Perak.

Both DAP's Perak and Penang state committees have proposed seats in their respective states for Lim to contest, but the 63-year-old veteran politician himself has declined to speak on where he will be a candidate.

When contacted, Perak state chairperson Ngeh Koo Ham said no decision has been made on where Lim will be fielded, but said the final choice will depend on which state can provide the best platform for its main campaign message, 'No to Islamic state'.

If the party's message is likely to be "drowned out by the euphoria" of Penang-based Abdullah Ahmad Badawi becoming prime minister, then "the best option would be for Lim to run in Perak," Ngeh explained.

The Batu Gajah parliamentary constituency in Perak, a DAP stronghold, is currently being held by the party's youngest MP, 30-year-old Fong Po Kuan.

Fong had announced last year that she would not contest a subsequent term, but the spunky politician has since been asked by party elders to reconsider her decision.

When pressed on the matter, Ngeh declined to confirm if Fong will contest the next elections, or whether she will stand for Batu Gajah again, a seat which she won in her first foray in electoral politics with a majority of 2,071 votes.

Either way, the Perak chief revealed that Lim's choices will be limited between seats in Perak and Chinese-majority Penang, given that these would be DAP's frontline states for its campaign.

"We feel that we will most likely achieve our target (of throwing out either PAS or Umno's Islamic state proposal) in Perak and Penang," he said.

"Where (Lim) goes is secondary. The point is to get the message across and prevent the nation from walking down the Islamic state path.

"Too much time is spent, in the media or parliament, debating on who is more Islamic, at the expense of real, substantive issues such as rape and crime cases, which are not addressed," he said, alluding to Umno and PAS efforts to outdo each other on religiosity and morality.

In past elections, Lim has ran in constituencies deemed as 'risky' and difficult to win, earning him the label of 'The Tiger'.

One of his biggest coup was in 1990 when he defeated then Penang chief minister Lim Chong Eu for the Padang Kota state seat.

His fortunes however tumbled at the next elections in 1995 following his loss to Gerakan candidate Dr Koh Tsu Koon - by a whopping majority of 7,703 - over the Tanjung Bungah state constituency. Koh subsequently took chief ministership.

Despite keeping his Tanjung parliamentary seat, Lim's loss to Koh nevertheless ended the party's ambitious Tanjung campaigns aimed at wresting control of Penang's chief ministership.

It was a dramatic departure from the success of Tanjung I and Tanjung II in the 1986 and 1990 elections respectively.

After failing to win voter support in1999, DAP have come to recognise that it must regain its old parliamentary seats, and in particular a seat for Lim.

However, with Penang being the home state of newly minted prime minister Abdullah, the going will be tough for DAP, thus making any venture there by Lim risky.

Unless one of the incumbent DAP MPs give way to Lim, the opposition leader will have to take on the more difficult task of wresting a seat from the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.

Lim's failure to win a seat in this electoral outing will most likely spell an end to his long political career.

"It is a do-or-die situation," Ngeh said, adding that the party's 'principle leaders' must be returned to "check on the Islamisation policy".

Despite such earnest pronouncements, the issue of Keadilan and its foray into areas where DAP had contended as the sole opposition against BN, remains unsettled.

Without the negotiations, and if neither side backs down, the parties may end up competing in the same constituencies, split opposition votes, and hand the seats to BN on a silver platter.

Asked if the party's unilateral seat announcements in the press last week indicate that all negotiations with opposition party Parti Rakyat Keadilan (Keadilan) are definitely off, Ngeh said there is still 'no electoral understanding' between the two.

But he added that in the event that the two parties do not settle their differences in time for the elections, DAP will still maintain the advantage in three-cornered fights with Keadilan and the ruling BN.

"In three-corner fights, DAP will win. This is based on our calculation of the make-up of the voting constituency, which is racially mixed in the areas we plan to contest in Perak."