Gerakan's Number One Offers To Step Down For Defeat

PENANG, March 9 (Bernama) -- Outgoing Penang chief minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon said Sunday he was willing to step down as Gerakan leader, following the party's disastrous defeat in the just-concluded general election.

"I take full responsibility (for the defeat). It also means my own preference is to offer to step aside.

"However, (as) I am holding the post of the party's acting president, it would be awkward if I stepped aside.

"Who is going to be the acting (party) president and lead the party We will then have to hold party election," he told reporters after receiving a courtesy call from DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng at his office in Komtar here today.

Lim is Penang chief minister-designate.

He said the party's central committee leaders needed to discuss the matter, adding that the Gerakan Central Commitee would be meeting at the party headquarters in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow at 5pm.

Koh, who was Penang chief minister for the past 18 years, was the party's biggest casualty when he lost to a rookie, Dr P. Ramasamy , a former University Kebangsaan Malaysia's political science lecturer and socialist, for the Batu Kawan parliamentary seat.

Ramasamy won with a majority of 9,485 votes.

Koh said he would prefer to take full responsibility for Gerakan's worst defeat in the general election.

The party only won two of the 12 parliamentary seats contested nationwide, namely Gerik and Simpang Renggam.

For the rest of the country, the party won only five out of 31 state seats, namely Kuala Sepetang (Perak), Ketari (Pahang), Pemanis and Bukit Batu (Johor), and Derga in Kedah.

In Penang, Gerakan lost all the four parliamentary and 13 state seats contested.

Koh, who took over the party leadership from Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik last April, said he would hold a meeting with party members and leaders to analyse the post-mortem of its drastic loss, and also discuss the next course of action.

The youngest Penang chief minister to be appointed in October, 1990, he was the third chief minister of the state since Independence.

He resigned as dean of education, Universiti Sains Malaysia's school of educational studies to join politics in 1982, and contested the Tanjong parliamentary seat the same year, beating DAP candidate Chian Heng Kai by a majority of 834 votes.

-- BERNAMA