Neil Khor
Nov 20, 09
10:51am
Does the MCA have a future? With its enormous financial resources and a social network of business and community interests, the MCA is still a force to be reckoned with.
But gone are the days that it is seen as the sole representative of the Chinese. The current party in-fighting goes to show that the MCA only has the interests of some Chinese at heart. Even its own members are turned-off by the antics of its leaders.
Essentially, the party has reached sixty-years. It is really well-beyond middle-age and entering into the twilight zone.
It is led by a president whose platform - standing up to the enemies of MCA and fighting corruption - has lost its lustre.
It has two deputy presidents, one who got reinstated by the very president who tried to unseat him.
The other deputy now fights against the president who elevated him to the position of deputy president only to rescind the offer after making up with his first deputy.
Technically, its Youth and Wanita wings have leaders who have been expelled from the powerful presidential council.
More recently, the president also kicked out several presidential council members who were recommended by himself to be in the cabinet. In short, the MCA is in meltdown.
Ong Tee Keat must learn from Dr Mahathir, the grand-old man of Malaysian politics. Dr Mahathir was able to get rid of his deputies and even his anointed successor; and they remain out of power.
Ong was unsuccessful at unseating his deputy and compounded the problem by appointing another. No wonder the MCA has to remain in a side-kick position. Even the Deputy Prime Minister admitted that if he was a Chinese, he would not support the MCA.
MCA shine fast dimming
It is obvious that the DPM was speaking tongue-in-cheek. If he were really Chinese, he would be ashamed of the MCA and its splinter group, the lack-lustre Gerakan.
The latter could not even interest journalists after its AGM into asking a single question. The MCA, on the other hand, is getting journalists all riled up.
In one local daily, a journalist threw-up, unable to keep up with the spinning of the MCA leadership. Even business community leaders are unable to quell the dissent within the party.
No wonder the PM is turning grey. Najib, who has a country to manage and policies to implement, has to devote a substantial amount of time talking to individual leaders in MCA to make sure the proposed peace plan bear fruits.
The PM must be aware that the harvest will most likely be very bitter if he intervenes directly in the affairs of the MCA. It just confirms public perception that the MCA is under the thumb of Umno.
Although in this case, it is more correct to say that the MCA is in such disarray
that Umno has little choice but to get involved.
Looking at the current scenario, it might be a better thing if the PM started talking to DAP. The MCA, like Gerakan and MIC, have made themselves un-electable.
At the rate things are going, Umno is better off with a new partner like the DAP. If Umno can work with Gerakan, a non-sectarian party, it can also work with DAP.
Fistful of dust danger
The conditions for both parties to work together must be that the original concept of the BN be resurrected. The BN can be re-structured and evolve into a non-sectarian organisation.
Tun Abdullah wanted to open up direct membership into the BN and expand its role, bringing all the component parties under a more effective umbrella organisation.
But this means Umno giving up its iron-grip on power, something very hard to do.
Another option is for Umno to go it alone. Dropping the MCA, MIC and Gerakan for a short-while and appeal to the non-Malays by itself.
Umno like PAS can develop special wings for non-Malays to join the party.Later, it can accord these non-Malay members voting rights.
In short, Umno itself can evolve into a United Malaysian National Organisation. It will be a Malaysian Malaysia on Umno's own terms, which sounds very much like 1Malaysia.
Ultimately, Umno may have no choice. If its component parties in the Peninsular cannot get their act together convincingly, Umno may find itself held to ransom by its East Malaysian partners.
Either way, it faces the prospect of giving up its iron-grip on power. Power-sharing seems inevitable.
Of course, optimists feel that the MCA implosion will turn up a stronger party but there is very little doubt that if something drastic does not happen in the next few weeks, the damage done to the BN by the MCA might be so great that kicking them out would be better than keeping them in the fold.
Even before the last general elections, the MCA was seen as playing a peripheral political role.
They were and are mostly a welfare organisation. Today, even that little role has een eroded.
Whatever the outcome of Najib's intervention, the MCA will find it very hard to convince voters that it has the stuff required of leadership.
Even if all the leaders kissed and made up, the party's reputation nationwide has been irrevocably damaged. If the PM is not careful, he might finish up with a handful of dust.
