Tan Chee Khoon

Tan Chee Khoon (4 March 1919 – 14 October 1996) was a major figure in Malaysian politics from 1959 to 1978, at one point being nicknamed "Mr. Opposition" for the outspoken views he presented in Parliament.

Tan was born into a Chinese immigrant family in 1919 in Cheras, Selangor.

His parents were Tan Chin Ghee and Tay Kim Siew.

On weekends, Tan woke up at 5.30 a.m. to feed livestock, and then cycled five miles to tap rubber.

When he returned at 4 in the afternoon, he would tend the vegetable patch and fruit trees in his garden.

The Tans were devout Methodist Christians, and attended Cantonese-language services regularly.

At the age of 13, Tan lost his left eye in an accident when he tried to carve his name into a rubber tree with a knife.

Tan's first formal education was at the Pudu English Girls' School (despite him being a boy), but he later attended the Victoria Institution (VI).

From VI, Tan transferred to Kajang High School, where he was an active Boy Scout.

In 1938, Tan competed for the Queen's Scholarship to study medicine in England.

However, he had to settle for a scholarship to the King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore instead.

Even this initially appeared impossible, as he was rejected due to the loss of his eye; however a personal appeal from his headmaster gained him admission to the college.

However, soon after Tan entered the college in 1939, Tan had his education interrupted by the outbreak of World War II and the occupation of Malaya and Singapore by the Japanese; Tan spent this period at his home in Kuala Lumpur.

When the British returned at the end of the war in 1945, Tan resumed his studies.

Tan held several posts in the Medical College's Students' Union, and also helped draw up the constitution for the students' union of the University of Malaya Singapore campus (which would later become the National University of Singapore).

After graduating from medical school in 1949, Tan spent two years at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital before later going into private practice.

In 1952, he joined the newly founded Labour Party, and campaigned for it in the 1955 Federal Legislative Council election.

Although Labour was soundly defeated, Tan remained committed to it because of his belief in socialism, which the party shared.

Tan helped Labour prepare memoranda submitted to the Reid Commission, which drew up the Constitution for Malaya, which achieved independence in 1957.

In 1959, Tan became the chairman of the Selangor Election Committee of the Socialist Front, a coalition between the Labour Party and Parti Rakyat.

Labour managed to take advantage of internal discord in the ruling Alliance coalition, and made major gains in the 1959 general election.

He was the official Leader of the Opposition in Parliament from 1964 to 1969.

Although he was originally a leader of the Labour Party of Malaya and the Socialist Front coalition which Labour had joined, Tan later co-founded Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (Gerakan)

In 1964, Tan contested both the Parliamentary seat of Batu in Kuala Lumpur and the Selangor State Assembly seat of Kepong.

Gerakan, together with the Democratic Action Party (DAP) which took similar stances to Gerakan, were very successful in the 1969 general elections, and appeared to be on the verge of denying the Alliance the 2/3 Parliamentary majority required to amend the Constitution.

In Selangor, Tan's home state, the State Assembly was tied between Alliance and opposition assemblymen.

Tan organised a victory parade on 12 May, and received permission from the police to hold it.

However, the participants deviated from the authorised route, jamming traffic, and entered a predominantly Malay area of Kuala Lumpur, where they shouted racial epithets.

On 13 May, UMNO organised a retaliatory march, and armed groups of Malays gathered at the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The march degenerated into a racial riot, and the violence continued for two days.

Official statistics later put the total dead in the area of 200, although unofficial ones give a figure five times higher.

A state of emergency was declared, and Parliament was suspended.

Although the Alliance crushed the opposition, Tan won both seats – with a margin of victory of two votes for his Parliamentary seat, officially the smallest ever margin of victory in a Malaysian election as of 2004 – and was one of only two Labour members of parliament (MPs).

Tan would not relinquish either seat until his retirement.

During his tenure as an MP, Tan became known for thoroughly probing government policies and making his views known.

As a result, he was popularly known as "Mr. Opposition".

Tan was known for his opposition to wanton amendments of the Constitution in Parliament, and also for his outspoken opposition to the establishment of Malaya (and later Malaysia) as an Islamic state, which he felt contravened the Constitution.

He was also known for his devotion to his constituents, making himself available to them at least two days a week in his office.

Tan made no secret of his religion, and freely peppered his Parliamentary speeches with quotations from the Bible, leading the first Malaysian Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, to remark how much he sounded like a preacher.

When the Labour Party was taken over by Chinese-educated members with more leftist views—eventually leading to the party's deregistration by the government, Tan left the party to form Gerakan, with the objective of attracting Malays away from race-based parties such as the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), a major party in the Alliance catering to the Malay majority of the population.