Architect of Penang's transformation

LIM Guan Eng, Chief Minister of Malaysia's north-western state of Penang for six years now and one of the country's most popular opposition politicians, lunges forward in his seat, elbow jammed to desk, visibly aghast at the question: "Tinkering?". He then collects himself and with spirited solicitousness, remarks "It's transformative, what," as he glides back.

The 54-year-old secretary-general of Malaysia's Chinese-based opposition party Democratic Action Party and Penang's fourth chief minister appears chafed when asked whether he agreed with a pocket of Penangites' views that, despite his staunch grassroots backing, what he has mostly done is "tinkering, not in-your-face transformation" in the DAP-led state. "We have reinvented government, simplified procedures and all our projects are done through open tenders. There are two women sitting in the municipal council as presidents where there were all men before. Isn't that transformative?" asks the qualified accountant, former political detainee and eldest son of opposition stalwart Lim Kit Siang, gleefully.

Mr Lim, an economics graduate from Australia's Monash University, where the seeds of social consciousness were sown, started his career as the head of the credit division in Chung Khiaw Bank (the bank was taken over by UOB in the early 1970s).