More than three weeks after a new Pakatan Harapan coalition got swept into power in Malaysia, Malaysians are still enthralled by their new finance minister Lim Guan Eng.

They are simply not used to seeing a minister frequently huddled over a plate of hawker fare with his colleagues or family.

Malaysia finance minister eating hawker food 🇲🇾 pic.twitter.com/F7dCalGFN9

— Mothership.sg (@MothershipSG) May 26, 2018

Malaysia finance minister eating hawker food again 🇲🇾 pic.twitter.com/LVti3xci1w

— Mothership.sg (@MothershipSG) May 30, 2018

Working class hero

Lim, who has emerged as the working class hero this election who regular Malaysians can relate to, is the secretary-general of the Democratic Action Party.

In an interview with Malay Mail, Lim said his party and its members are still labouring to reconcile being part of the new government working out of posher environments with its working-class roots.

He was speaking to the media at the Finance Ministry's plush office in Putrajaya, which is far removed from his party's headquarters in the working-class and slightly seedy neighbourhood of Pudu.

Jailed twice

For Lim, his path to the finance minister’s post has been as oblique as Anwar Ibrahim, who is the prime minister-in-waiting.

Lim has gone from being jailed twice as an opposition leader — once for sedition and the other time under the Internal Security Act — to eventually becoming the Penang chief minister, before taking up a Cabinet position now.

“From Kajang to Komtar, and then from Komtar to Putrajaya,” he said.

DAP a working class party

He said DAP was fortunate because it has always been a working-class party.

“We are not a businessmen's party. We are not a towkay party."

But he said it would now be challenging to stay true to these origins.

Being in power would attract many different classes of people.

“But in essence our culture, our values will remain working class.

“The food we eat, hawker stall lah. Where the food is the best, it's the hawker stalls or alleyways.”

Asked where he would prefer to eat now, his preference is obvious.

“Of course I will still be eating char kway teow by the roadside and the best chicken rice, whether you like it or not, is still in the hawker stalls. Not in the restaurants, not in the hotels.”

Not just a Chinese, but Malaysian

Lim said it was also important for his party — and Malaysia — to stop looking at issues through ethnic lenses.

“For me I don't see myself as Chinese anymore. Why should the Chinese reporter think just because I am Chinese that I will spare the ECRL project,” he said in reference to a question posed to him by a reporter from China after he was announced as finance minister.

“We have got to look at it from the basis of whether it benefits Malaysia or not, and not whether it is from China. It does not matter.”