GEORGE TOWN, June 17 — To Penang residents, Chow Kon Yeow is now familiar as their new chief minister, yet little is known about how he made his way up the ranks.

Chow has been a Pengkalan Kota assemblyman (1990-1995), a Padang Kota representative (2008-present), and a Tanjong MP (1999-2008 and present). 

After Barisan Nasional (BN) lost the state in 2008, he also became the state exco for local government, traffic management and flood mitigation for the past 10 years.

When asked about the scarcity of his background information, Chow said it was because he preferred to remain low-key.

Now in the hot seat, he said he was more open to sharing snippets from his past.

The 60-year-old grew up sharing a room with his parents in a squatter settlement in Jalan Chan Sow Lin, Kuala Lumpur.

He is the sixth of nine children and his parents worked in a foundry near their home.

Chow’s brothers also joined the same industry, as did Chow during school holidays to earn extra income.

After he finished his Sixth Form in TAR College back in 1977, Chow worked in a civil engineering firm as a trainee draftsman for two years before he applied and was accepted to Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) to study Social Science in 1980.

Chow also had a brief stint as a reporter and subsequently, as a sub-editor with the National Echobetween 1984 and 1986 following his graduation.

He then became Lim Kit Siang’s political secretary and went on to win the Pengkalan Kota state seat in 1990 as an Opposition assemblyman.

When he lost in the 1995 general election, Chow went into a trading business with his friends selling clocks and tau sar pneah for two years.

But the siren song of politics beckoned and he returned full time to prepare for Election 1999.

Then, he won the Tanjong parliamentary seat and remained so until 2013 when he made way for Ng Wei Aik to contest the seat.

Chow won the Padang Kota state seat in 2008, avenging his losses to Gerakan’s Teng Chang Yeow in 1999 and 2004.

He successfully defended the state seat in 2013 and the May 9 poll. He also defended his Tanjong parliamentary seat on May 9 after Ng was dropped.

When former chief minister Lim Guan Eng opted to move to Putrajaya following PH’s general election victory, Chow was named as his replacement.

https://www.malaymail.com/s/1642639/chow-kon-yeow-a-journey-from-squatter-house-to-penang-cms-office