Dear Penang Chief Minister YB Lim Guan Eng,

First and foremost, congratulations on your successful campaigning and eventual victory in wresting, or shall we say liberating, the state of Penang from Barisan Nasional. It was a miraculous and unbelievable moment in our lives because we thought it was near impossible for ‘change’ to happen. But indeed it did take place, historically.

We waited for that moment for a very long time, right from the first assault launched by your father, YB Lim Kit Siang, with mission ‘Tanjong’ in 1986, followed by ‘Tanjong 2' and ‘3' in 1990 and 1995, respectively.

In 1990, when your father defeated the then chief minister Dr Lim Chong Eu, for the Padang Kota State seat, we, for once believed that finally the opposition had captured Penang. We were overwhelmingly confident that since the chief minister himself was defeated surely, surely, the state was captured by DAP.

But as fate would have it, the final count was Opposition 14 against Barisan’s 19.Ahh! We were utterly dejected to the point of being speechless; we could not even cry for it was so close and yet...

In 1995, during the election campaign, when we first saw the poster of your father, Kit Siang, with the caption ‘Chief minister with power’, we told our friends and family ‘Now, that’s how a chief minister should look like, very stern and yet elegant’.

We were there on Nov 20, 1995, the eve of the polling day at the Macallum Flats’ playground for the final mammoth rally of the DAP. We were waiting with anticipation for the emergence of the last speaker of the night. When the DAP song was played signifying the arrival of your father, the whole crowd of about 20,000 people went wild with cheers.

Your father was given a hero’s welcome with a roaring and thunderous applause from the frenzied crowd. The atmosphere was electrifying. We thought to ourselves, ‘This is it, the time has come, and we are looking at the next chief minister’.

But then again, the huge crowd did not translate into votes. We were very sad and dejected. It was then that we gave up hope on our dreams to see change/improvement in the political scenario of our beloved state of Penang.

Now, after 22 years since the first ‘Tanjong’ battle cry in 1986, what eluded your father was captured by your goodself. We sincerely felt that you deserved to be appointed as the chief minister (apart from many other reasons including your level of education) especially for the one noble deed where you fought and paid a heavy price in sacrificing your freedom to defend the plight of a 15-year-old girl. We salute you for that.

We can and we do proudly say that our chief minister fought for justice, fought for truth, fought for the oppressed and fought for equal rights.

Lim, now that the dream of capturing Penang from Barisan Nasional has become a reality, its time Pakatan Rakyat, especially DAP, move on and show to the rest of the world what it means by good governance.

Recently there were many allegations against the Penang government, particularly against your goodself, such as not fulfilling your electoral promises, allegations of mismanagement, accusations of betrayal by certain villagers and so on.

Lim, we believe that Penang cannot be transformed nor can the mismanagement of the previous government be rectified within these 21 months that you have taken over, but YB, we strongly feel that what is lacking from your side is information to the general public on current issues/ scandals/controversies plaguing the Penang government.

Currently, there are so many blogs carrying negative remarks/stories/allegations of your administration. We are having a hard time deciding on what to believe and what not to.

We are and we will support the Pakatan Rakyat government of Penang but how are we going to do so when we can’t even speak to our friends and relatives on the actual facts/truths of the matter? Where are we supposed to get the right information?

We would like to suggest to your goodself to please provide a media, a blog for instance, where we could seek for the truth or in other words your side of the story (so to speak). If at present there is such a site/blog that undertakes to disseminate your views/points/explanations on the current issues of Penang, please guide us to that source.

Maybe there might be some news being carried in a Chinese daily but then again how many Chinese in Penang can read and write Mandarin? How many of those who can, subscribe to these dailies? How about the non-Chinese?

Lim, we wish to see your governance of our beloved Penang continue for many years to come but you can’t achieve that without us - the people, the layman and the voters.

The next general election will most probably will be called somewhere in late 2011 or early 2012 since the present federal government will not wait too long to launch their campaign to recapture what they lost. Which means, YB, you only have another 24 to 30 months!

Please help us to help you, in helping Pakatan Rakyat to retain Penang in the next general election. Looking forward to hearing from your goodself.