COMMENT Penang state assembly representative for Tanjong Bungah Teh Yee Cheu must be lauded for his courage in filing a motion in the state legislature to limit the tenure of a chief minister to two terms.

Teh is from DAP and is not on fraternal terms with Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, but that is no reason why his initiative must be viewed with askance.

Speaker Law Cho Kiang took a leaf out of the playbook of Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia by ruling out the motion for non-compliance with criteria.

“The motion is neither urgent nor is it of public interest nor is national security threatened,” said Law, the PKR Bukit Tambun assemblyperson, in tones that must have reminded critics of the opposition that in the crunch the differences between a BN-appointee and Pakatan Harapan one are negligible.

I t was said that Teh’s proposal was received with a silence that was deafening .

Just about the same reaction would have been the case when Umno vice-president Hishammuddin Hussein revealed to the press yesterday that not one of the 191 divisions had filed a motion at the upcoming general assembly that party president Najib Abdul Razak resign.

Hishammuddin said support from 132 divisions indicated that Najib should continue to lead the party despite the intense criticism he has received over the way matters to do with sovereign wealth fund 1MDB have been handled.

Left unsaid was the disposition of 59 Umno divisions towards Najib which cannot be assumed to be in favour of his continuance as party president.

Yet Hishammuddin was undeterred in concluding that the fact that “there isn’t one” division that has proposed a no-confidence motion against Najib meant that the presidential coast was clear for the incumbent.

Contemplating the deafening silence that reigned at the Penang legislature in reaction to Teh’s motion and, presumably, the identical hush prevalent among 59 Umno divisions, one is reminded of the writer Albert Camus’ definition of tyranny: a single voice over a myriad solitudes.

The silence, or solitude if you will, does not mean it’s void of intent; the obverse may be truer.

Representatives or delegates don’t want to say their piece because of apprehension about consequences. That’s bad but to assume that absent something to say means they have nothing to say is worse.

For Pakatan Harapan, Teh’s proposal of term limits on a principal position in the overall architecture of the coalition’s leadership has compelling merit.

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, by the time of the next general election (GE14) in 2018, would have completed two terms in a principal position in the overall structure of Pakatan Harapan governance.

At this distance from the finish of his second term, it would not be hazardous to say he has done a commendably good job as CM.

Penang is much better governed than when he took over from BN’s Koh Tsu Koon in March 2008.

Quitting while they’re ahead

Nothing would be so becoming of Lim’s tenure than for him to recognise he can’t do better. It’s not just outstanding sports performers who quit while they are ahead.

Democratic governors also do and that is from wise acceptance - to paraphrase Lord Acton’s famous aphorism - of a truism that ought to be nailed to the mast of good governors: long tenures in power corrupt, protracted ones corrupt irresistibly.

Lim’s self-willed acceptance of this maxim will be a greater contribution to Malaysia’s political history than was his serving time in prison in defence of the honour of a Malay girl two decades ago.

Apart from Teh Yee Cheu, there is no one in DAP intrepid enough to tell Lim that a two-term limit in the top spot is just what that sound proposition is: good for him, necessary for the party, and preserving of the coalition.

Long ago the late Karpal Singh joined with Lim senior (Kit Siang) in the firming up of a duopoly that has since run the DAP.

Aided by BN’s steady slide into decadence, this duopoly ensured order and cohesion in DAP, but the downside has been the loss of people like Teh who are willing to challenge prevailing orthodoxies.

Consider where the DAP would be today vis-a-vis the question of Malay support for it had Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud, and not Ramkarpal Singh, been its candidate for Karpal senior’s seat in Bukit Gelugor in the by-election of May 2014.

The DAP would have broken electrifying new ground and Umno-BN will have been rocked back on its heels.

Still, it must be said that if there would have been anyone besides Teh with the gumption to tell Lim that two terms as CM is the limit, it would have been the late Karpal.

Acquiescence by DAP - and by extension Pakatan Harapan - to term limits will ensure constant refreshment of its talent pool.

Umno-BN’s talent pool has dried up. Pakatan Harapan’s will soon wither from nepotic domination of its elite leadership, as is the case in DAP and PKR.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.