GEORGE TOWN: Former Penang chief minister Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu died at his home at 9.07pm yesterday in Tanjung Bungah, a month after suffering from a stroke.

Lim, 91, was admitted to the Penang Hospital on Oct 26. He  was taken home shortly before he breathed his last.

Chong Eu was born in 1919 in Penang. He was Penang’s second chief minister and served from 1969 until 1990 when he was ousted by DAP’s Lim Kit Siang during the 1990 general election. Retiring from politics, Lim had since kept a very low profile, shying away from the public and instead focusing his attention on business.

In the March 1958 MCA party elections, he challenged Tun Tan Cheng Lock and won the presidency with a majority of 22 votes. After the victory, he called an EGM to amend the constitution to consolidate the power of the central committee which was met with strong resistance by Tun Tan Siew Sin and his supporters.

Although the proposal was passed with a single-vote majority, the move left the party split. The MCA, under Chong Eu, also had severe political differences with the then prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The crisis worsened on the eve of the 1959 general elections when Chong Eu demanded 40 parliamentary seats and also wanted to make Chinese an official language.

The Tunku increased the seats allocated to MCA from 28 to 31 but this was rejected and their relationship worsened. During the one-year period when the MCA was under Lim, the party was under tremendous pressure from within and outside. In December 1960, Chong Eu left the MCA and in 1962, he formed the United Democratic Party.

This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, November 25, 2010.