New Straits Times, 5 Jan 2000

By Lee Keng Fatt

PENANG, Tues. - Gerakan founder member Datuk Lim Ee Heong yesterday tendered his resignation from the crisis-laden party, a move which he claimed would prompt many other "suppressed" members to follow suit. Lim addressed his two-page letter, dated Jan 3, to party president Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik.

"I write this letter with a heavy and painful heart and I hope that you will share my feelings from reading it.

"Therefore, I hereby officially giving you (Dr Lim) notice that I am resigning from Parti Gerakan as of today (yesterday). Henceforth, there is absolutely no relations between you bunch of cronies and I," he said, signing off with a "take good care" message to Dr Lim.

Lim is the second senior Gerakan member to quit the party following vice-president Dr Goh Cheng Teik's resignation on Dec 3. Goh, former Nibong Tebal Member of Parliament and Deputy Agriculture Minister had then said he quit to show solidarity with Datuk Keramat State Assemblyman Lim Boo Chang and Bayan Lepas State Assemblyman Lim Chien Aun, whom he claimed had stood by him when he (Goh) had contested against Chief

Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon for the State party chairman's post last May.

Both Boo Chang and Chien Aun had also quit the party on Dec 2. Incidentally, Boo Chang is Lim's (Ee Heong) eldest son while Chien Aun is the eldest son of party founder Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu. In his letter faxed to the Press, Ee Heong also hit out at the party president.

He claimed that while Keng Yaik had welcomed Boo Chang and Chien Aun back to the fold, the party president had also viciously frozen several divisions and branches in Penang.

This, Ee Heong said, was done to enable Keng Yaik's cronies to take over the running of the divisions and branches, and ultimately, grab full control of the party.

"I am already 68 this year, and am old and sick. While I am still alive, I will not support a party that has deviated from its original aims and objectives. Neither will I lend my support to an incompetent leadership of the party," he said.

Explaining further his reasons for quitting, Lim claimed he had witnessed how Keng Yaik had allegedly "caused" his colleagues Datuk Paul Leong, Datuk Dr Tan Tiong Hong and Tan Sri Chan Choong Tak to retire one after another and at the same time cultivated a small bunch of "cronies" to take control of the party.

He also claimed that since the party had fallen into the hands of such political dependents "they have been continuously segregating dissidents, persecuting good and loyal members, manufacturing phantom members and branches until voices of opposition can be heard within every corner of the party".