Lim Guan Eng

Lim Guan Eng (born 8 December 1960) is a Malaysian politician and accountant from the Democratic Action Party (DAP), a component party of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bagan, Member of the Penang State Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Air Putih since March 2008 and 5th National Chairman of DAP since March 2022.

Lim is the son of Lim Kit Siang, Leader of the Opposition in the Malaysian House of Representatives from 1973 to 1999 and 2004 to 2008.

He is married to Betty Chew Gek Cheng (周玉清), who was former two-term MLA for Kota Laksamana in Malacca.

She is the first serving assemblywoman to be married to a Chief Minister.

They have four children.

His younger sister Lim Hui Ying is the MP for Tanjong.

Lim Guan Eng attended La Salle Primary English School in Petaling Jaya, and later the Batu Pahat Montfort Primary English School.

For his secondary education, he attended Batu Pahat High School and Malacca High School.

He graduated from Monash University in Australia with a Bachelor of Economics (BEc).

He also served as the president of MUISS (Monash University International Student Society) during his university years.

Prior to his political career, Lim was a senior executive at a bank.

He was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Kota Melaka in 1986, defeating Soh Chin Aun with a majority of 17,606 votes.

He was appointed the DAP Socialist Youth chairman in 1989 and was formally elected to that post in 1992.

He was re-elected in the 1990 and 1995 general elections, albeit with reduced majorities.

He thus became the first person to be elected to three consecutive terms in Kota Melaka.

He was also the first Malacca High School alumnus to achieve this.

In 1995, he was elected the DAP Deputy Secretary-General.

He was elected the party's Secretary-General in 2004, and held that position until 2022.

The same year, he was elected as National Chairman of the party.

In 2005, Lim suffered a surprise defeat in his campaign for re-election to the Malacca DAP committee.

However, as Lim remained Secretary-General of the party, he was automatically included in the committee in accordance with the party's constitution.

His wife, who had also failed to be elected to the Melaka committee, was not included in the committee even though she remained the chief of the state's DAP women's wing.

Teresa Kok, a DAP MP, suggested that there was a conspiracy behind the Lims' failure to be reelected.

Nevertheless, Lim went on to garner the second highest number of votes (620) at the party's 15th National Congress on 23 August 2008.

In the 2008 Malaysian general election, the DAP-PKR-PAS coalition, later known as Pakatan Rakyat (PR), won 29 out of the 40 state assembly seats contested in Penang, defeating the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

The DAP won 19 seats, PKR 9 seats, and PAS 1.

Even though Lim is not a Penangite, he was nominated to be the Chief Minister (CM) of Penang, replacing the former Chief Minister Dr. Koh Tsu Koon of Malaysian People's Movement Party (Gerakan).

Other senior DAP leaders of Penang such as Lim Hock Seng, Phee Boon Poh, and Chow Kon Yeow were bypassed and were instead appointed as state executive council members.

When he took over as the new Penang CM, Lim announced an amnesty on all summonses issued by the Penang Island City Council and Seberang Perai Municipal Council involving vendors' licences and parking offences issued before March 2008.

On 14 March 2008, a mob composed mostly of UMNO members and supporters took to the streets illegally after Friday prayers to protest his statements on the NEP.

No arrests were made but two men were taken in for questioning.

Various BN-backed groups and NGOs continued to protest and lodge police reports as a form of continued harassment.

On 19 March 2008, Lim announced that the state exco had approved an open tender system for state projects exceeding RM 50,000.

For projects between RM20,000 and RM50,000, a balloting system was introduced.

In the 2013 Malaysian general election, Pakatan Rakyat won a larger majority, gaining 30 out of the 40 state seats in Penang.

In 2016, Lim was charged with corruption for buying a bungalow priced at below the market value.

He served as the Minister of Finance in the PH administration under former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad from May 2018 to the collapse of the PH administration in February 2020, 4th Chief Minister of Penang from March 2008 to May 2018, MP for Kota Melaka from August 1986 to November 1999 and 4th Secretary-General of DAP from September 2004 to March 2022.

After the victory of his coalition, Pakatan Harapan, in the 2018 general elections, the court discharged him from the case, amounting to an acquittal.

On 6 August 2020, Lim Guan Eng was arrested by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, following weeks of a probe into an RM6.3 billion undersea tunnel project that was green-lit during his tenure as Penang chief minister.

According to the commission, Lim will be charged with bribery and abuse of power relating to the undersea tunnel project, and a separate abuse of power charge for the additional unspecified case.