Boo Chang quits PKR and eyeing return to Gerakan

GEORGE TOWN: A key PKR division leader here has called it quits and warned more members would be resigning from the party soon.

Bukit Gelugor PKR division head Lim Boo Chang, who announced his resignation from all party positions and as a Penang municipal councillor, expressed his interest to return to his original party, Gerakan.

However, it would be difficult as he had allegedly bad-mouthed Gerakan before.

Boo Chang said he had sent his resignation letters to PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Penang Municipal Council president Patahiyah Ismail.

“I know of many people who are unhappy with the way things are done in the party and I think they might follow me (in resigning),” he said at a press conference here yesterday.

“I was attracted to PKR's reform agenda but after three years, my confidence has run thin as the party failed to fulfil its promises,” he said.

Boo Chang is the son of Datuk Lim Ee Heong, a veteran politician who helped Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu in the formation of Gerakan, which took over the Penang state government in 1969 from the then Alliance.

He joined Gerakan in 1984 after returning from Britain where he studied law and was the Datuk Keramat state assemblyman from 1994 to 2004.

However, he resigned from Gerakan in 1999 with Chong Eu's son Lim Chien Aun and both joined MCA.

Boo Chang was then appointed the state MCA assistant secretary and chief of the state legal bureau.

But a fallout with the state MCA leaders in 2002 saw him resign from the party six years later. He joined PKR after the 2008 general election.

Gerakan secretary-general Teng Chang Yeow said Boo Chang had bad-mouthed Gerakan after he left the party.

“He has burnt his bridges. So there's no way for him to return,” said Teng.

State PKR chairman Datuk Mansor Othman, who is also Deputy Chief Minister I, said Boo Chang's resignation was expected.

“From the way he has been behaving in the past two months; not attending party meetings and functions, it (his resignation) has been expected.

“He's done it before, and, of course he will do it again,” he said.