Goh was born on in Malacca. His name, Leong San, means "Hero of Mount Liang" in Chinese, a name that also was used in the famous Chinese classical novel Water Margin. He completed his tertiary education at Universiti Sains Malaysia obtaining the Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Chemistry. He was a chemist and household products manufacturer too before joining politic. He is married and a father of three children.
Political career
Goh joins the DAP in 1994. He contested the constituency of Tengkera twice and won in 1995 and 1999 to become its assemblyman from 1995 to 2004 before switching to contest the seat Bandar Hilir, Malacca in 2004 Malaysian state elections and won again in the 2008 election thus became its assemblyman from 2004 until 2008. In the 2008 election at age 40, Goh ran for state assemblyman against incumbent Datuk Koh Nai Kwong from MCA -BN in the electoral constituency of Kesidang, Malacca and defeated him with margin of 1,399 votes. In the 2013 election, he faced off against Gan Tian Loo from MCA -BN for the Duyong, Malacca seat and won again, though by a much smaller margin of just 205 votes.
Controversies
Goh ascended to the DAP chairmanship in Malacca in 2005, succeeding his mentor Sim Tong Him. Goh secured 85 votes in the hotly contested internal election, which saw DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng and his wife Betty Chew get the lowest number of votes out of 15 candidates, thus causing Chew to lose her seat on the Malacca DAP committee entirely. Chew was "saddened by the results", but said she accepted her defeat. However, Teresa Kok, a DAP Member of Parliament, suggested there was a conspiracy behind the defeat of Lim and Chew in their re-election campaigns. On 17 September 2015, Dr Wong Fort Pin, a doctor who is also the Bukit Palah DAP branch chairman successfully sued Goh and Sim Tong Him for defamation and won RM300,000 in damages. Both Goh and Sim DAP membership was suspended for one-year suspension on 16 February 2016, reportedly for disparaging the party. Goh was initially said to change to be an Independent assemblyman but somehow DAP maintains and distorts he is still a member of the party under suspension later. On 12 February 2017, Goh along with Sim, DAP Member of Parliament and two other DAP Malacca state assemblymen namely Lim Jack Wong of announced their resignation from the party to be Independent, citing lack of trust in the party leadership. They had formed an independent candidates block called 'Justice League' to contest in the 2018 general election using the key as their common symbol but all had lost. In the 2018 general election, Goh contested the parliamentary constituency of Kota Melaka and state constituency of Kota Laksamana as independent candidate but had lost the both constituencies.
