COMMENT "I am in a wheelchair but my party is strong," crowed Karpal Singh to a DAP national convention a few years back.

Nobody who had witnessed his durability over the previous three decades of his ties to the party, of which he is now national chairperson, could begrudge the Bukit Gelugor MP's triumphalism.

It was thoroughly justified, given that the occasion at which the triumphal note was sounded was a gathering of the party shortly after its collection of 28 seats in Parliament and the sweep of 19 wards in Penang that put the DAP at the head of the Pakatan Rakyat state government there.

Together with founders Dr Chen Man Hin and current national adviser Lim Kit Siang, Karpal has been an essential part of the leadership troika that has seen the party through several crests and troughs in its turbulent history...