For the second instalment of the malaysiakini question-and-answer forum, readers are invited to quiz the policies of Barisan Nasional partner Gerakan, a party which is uniquely known as the 'opposition' within the ruling coalition.

The party's representative for the forum is its secretary-general Chia Kwang Chye, one of the Gerakan's new generation of leaders, who joined the party in 1984 but rose quickly through the ranks to become one of Gerakan's top leaders.

He is widely considered as the party's No 4 after president Lim Keng Yaik, deputy president Kerk Choo Ting and Penang Chief Minister Dr Koh Tsu Koon, and is expected to move up another notch when the party leader retires soon.

Chia, 51, started his political career as a part-time assistant to Koh, who was then the member of parliament for Tanjong.

As his mentor gained prominence in the party, so too did Chia.

By 1995, the soft-spoken politician had been nominated to stand for the Bukit Bendera parliamentary seat against seasoned DAP politician Gooi Hock Seng, a three-term incumbent (Gooi has since joined Keadilan).

The decision to field new faces like Chia was made after both BN parties, Gerakan and MCA, suffered huge losses in the 1990 general election. DAP had won 14 out of 33 state seats, at the expense of Gerakan which lost four out of 11 seats contested and MCA which failed to win a single seat.

"Given that background, nobody had confidence in me winning in 1995. I was put in more to provide support to Dr Koh," he said during a recent interview.

Nevertheless, the strategy paid off. Given that Gooi had won in 1990 with a majority of some 11,000 votes, Chia successfully swung voters around to give him a majority of almost 3,000 votes to secure the Bukit Bendera seat.

He was to repeat this performance four years later by fighting off DAP strongman Lim Kit Siang and as a reward, he was appointed to the post of parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Energy, Communications and Multimedia.

Town planner

For all his attachment to Penang where he has made his home, Chia, the seventh in a family of 11, was born to in Kota Tinggi, Johor, in 1952. Chia is married with two children.

His acquaintance with Penang started when he moved to the island in 1972 to pursue his first degree in Housing, Building and Planning at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).

"I was the vice-president of the student union movement between 1973 and 1974. At that time, student activities were at their height (and) there were a lot of demonstrations. That was where the awakening or awareness started," he recalled.

After graduating, Chia worked for several years as a town planner with an architect firm before taking a year long sabbatical in 1979 to pursue his masters' degree in Human Settlement Planning at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand.

He was persuaded to join Gerakan several years later while lecturing part-time at USM.

"I joined in 1984 with a wave of intellectuals and academicians. When you have a lot of friends joining the party, you get influenced as well."

New political culture

On more immediate matters, Chia conceded that although the party had been trying for years to portray itself as a multi-racial party, the task of attracting young members remains a tricky one.

"We want to be a party for people who think like Malaysians but these people are in the minority. We are also competing with other parties either in the opposition or in the BN," he said.

He refuted suggestions that the party faced limited space to grow because of rigid seat allocations under BN arrangements, but acknowledged that it is one of the cons of being a member of the coalition.

"The number of seats we can contest for are all fixed. The parties have accepted this arrangement now for 30 years so it will continue to be like this. We have expanded to other states like Perak, Kuala Lumpur and Johor but this is not reflected in the number of seats we are allocated," he noted.

Still, Chia said this need not been a disincentive for young people to join the party.

"We try not to promote the culture of money politics or (obsession with) positions and prestige. If we try to attract people by position alone, there will never be enough to go around.

"We want to encourage more people like professionals and intellectuals to sacrifice their personal careers to come into what I call a public service."

Readers who are interested field questions to Chia on Gerakan and its policies may send them to editor@malaysiakini.com .

A selection of the questions will then be forwarded to Chia, and his answers will be published in malaysiakini .

Meanwhile, PAS secretary-general Nasharuddin Mat Isa, who was busy in organising the party's Muktamar (annual conference) in the past few weeks, will resume answering more questions from readers.