THE MALAYSIAN COURTS HAVE DECLARED that undated letters of resignation every National Front (BN) candidate signs on selection is invalid. Yet, the MCA President, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, who knows this only too well, now springs yet another surprise: that contrary to the widely held view that he wants to cling on to office, he sent an undated letter of resignation on August 15 to the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed last August, but it is Dr Mahathir who has yet to act on it. No one in MCA knew of it. He took neither the MCA Presidential Council nor the MCA Central Executive Committee into his confidence, on his considered view that he is the MCA and MCA he. If he was so intent on resigning from the Cabinet, why did he undate it? Was he using this as a lever to make the Chinese community believe that Dr Mahathir is a dictator wanting to destroy the paragon of the Chinese community? Why did he not then resign as MCA President? He could not have remained MCA president once he resigned from the Cabinet. The most charitable explanation is that it was yet another attempt to paint Dr Mahathir into a corner.

It does not matter, then, if Senator Zainal stays on or resigns. All it would happen, if he stays on, is for the MTUC to sink deeper into the quagmire; if he does not, and the MTUC does not then take a principled stand, either to limit the presidency or ban any such pacts, then one can safely write out the MTUC as a collective body of workers' representatives. Senator Zainal, however, is in good company. The MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, said he would resign, and then decided not to. The UMNO president, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, says he would resign, but does everything he can to make sure he can do a Zainal Rampak, come November this year. The MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, wants another five years in office to make it 30 years as its leader. So, the Gerakan president, Dato' Seri Lim Kheng Yaik. And all have one important trait they revel in: they are out of touch with those who elected them into power.

THE NATIONAL FRONT (BN) IS IN A BIND in Penang from the aftershocks of the MCA's naive and scatterbrained act to divert attention from the growing chorus from the Chinese community that its president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, resign. The MCA, more intent on protecting its president than BN, got two of its state assemblymen to abstain on an opposition-sponsored motion to delay the construction of the Penang Outer Ring Road (PORR), which backfired, forcing it to suspend the pair indefinitely. The BN, and UMNO, bayed for blood. The deputy prime minister and BN deputy president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, ignored BN protocol and constitution to demand their dismissal. A crisis like this, whenever it strikes the BN, reveals not a cohesive political grouping but one in which individual member parties ignore the coalition consensus for their own power play. In this instance, the MCA crossed swords with both Gerakan and UMNO in what on the surface was much ado about nothing.

THERE IS MORE HONOUR AMONGST thieves in Malaysia than politicians and trade unionists. The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, resigns from his post, only to renege because the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) president, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, wanted him to stay on. Loyalty to the UMNO president is more important to him, and other leaders of the National Front (BN), than his commitment to his community and the political party which elected him president. Close on his heels comes the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) president, Senator Zainal Rampak, who in his desire to serve the people, reneges on an honour-bound agreement, in return for no contest, to resign 18 months into his three-year presidency in favour of his challenger. That averted a contest, he was returned unopposed to the post he acceded to in a similar confrontation with the then MTUC president, Mr P.P. Narayanan, in 1984. PP kept his word. Senator Zainal is returned unopposed until 2001, when he was challenged as he had PP.

In this he is no different from other party leaders, in the National Front (BN) and the Opposition. It is, in their view, a superb mark of continuity and unity for one man to stay on as president until his teeth drop off. It is of no concern to them if they people and community they represent are marginalised, as now. One trait all acquire over the decades of fawning and self-acquired godship is the utmost belief in their invincibility, and the certainty that the political parties they lead would disintigrate when they leave. Another is the political senility and personal stupidity they acquire in good measure. The Ling Liong Sik phenomenon of insisting that he is the saviour of the Chinese community when, in truth, he is the Devil Incarnate, is how all political party leaders behave.

The Sultan of Selangor therefore has reason to decide enough is enough. And restricts it to 40. But it was the Sultan of Johore, in the 1980s, who put a stop to it so effectively that Johore politicians and business men who feel naked without a title has to get them from other states. He winced, as the Sultan of Selangor, when he succeeded his father at how rotten the award of titles had become. He pared them down so drastically that from 101 datoships in the fading years of his father's reign he now awards a handful every year. Last year, there were none, this year one. The Johore dato'ship is respected as it once was. In Kelantan and Trengganu, the sultan has taken over his regal right to award titles as he deems fit. In Kedah, the Sultan apologised to one for not awarding him the dato'ship he was recommended because he was under 45. He got it the following year when he came of age. In some states -- Pahang, Perak and Negri Sembilian, in particular -- no such control exists. Several men in their twenties have had two or three titles conferred on them. One, Dato' Soh Chee Wen, is on trial for a string of offences which could sink the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik.

THE NATIONAL FRONT (BN) CAN DO SCANT LITTLE as UMNO, MCA and Gerakan trade insults and threats on a non-issue brought to the fore in an irrelevant show of force by the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, and the BN deputy president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The farce ended when the MCA presidential council, with the UMNO gun at its throat, suspended "indefinitely" -- or as Dr Ling put it, "indefinite means indefinite" -- the two MCA state assemblymen who danced to his tune but were made scapegoats when UMNO objected. What makes it questionable is that all parties ignored the rules. That bad faith caused this crisis is not in doubt. The embattled MCA leaders in Kuala Lumpur staged this farce to divert attention. The BN deputy president ignored the rules and procedure to demand the two MCA state assemblymen be dismissed. The BN whip did not order the state assemblymen, as he must if it was of the importance he now says it is, to vote against the DAP motion. Without the whip, the state assemblymen can vote as they please.

The National Front (BN) is, as my friend Shamsul Akmar of the New Straits Times writes today (14 December 2002), greater than the sum of its parts. It was once. Not now. If it is, the crisis of the past fortnight would not be. UMNO holds BN in his iron grip, and not let law and procedure stand in its way. If it decides on a course of action, it would not relent until it gets it. One man in Sungei Buloh prison can attest to that. So, when two MCA state assemblymen abstained on an opposition-initiated motion in the Penang state assembly, UMNO decided to make an example of them in high dudgeon and by ignoring constitutional niceties. What UMNO wants, UMNO gets. The UMNO supreme council wants the duo expelled. Nothing less would do. UMNO also wants the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik's head, for setting the two state assemblymen up to abstain in an elaborate but sure-to-fail plan so it would provide the next chief minister of Penang. UMNO, MCA, Gerakan all lost their cool. The two state assemblymen must be sacked. It does not matter if everyone in this sorry episode failed to do their bit. And nine state assemblymen were not even present, as they should have been if the issue was as important as is now made out.

This manufactured tempest in a tea cup should not have arisen. Dato' Seri Abdullah acted to circumvent a last minute MCA move so its president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, would not have to resign, as he must, before the Soh Chee Wen trial resumes in January, 2003. Now, he may have to in a fortnight. When MCA botched it, UMNO Youth demanded the duo be expelled, and turned it into a needless racial confrontation. The BN secretary-general, Tan Sri Mohamed Rahmat, who appears not to have read, let alone understand, the BN constitution, echoes the Prime Minister to insist it has disciplinary powers against individual members of component parties. It does not. The MCA now is told to discipline the duo.

For even if the BN could act, it cannot. For what you see is not what is. For what is unstated is a bruising political fight involving UMNO, MCA and Gerakan on who should be chief minister of Penang. The crisis came to a head when the MCA state chief, Dato' Sek Cheng Lan, a crony and classmate of the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, persuaded two Gerakan state assemblymen, Mr Lim Boo Chang and Mr Lim Cheng Aun, to join the MCA, and upset the electoral balance within the BN in the state. Which he hoped would make him the first MCA chief minister since the late Tan Sri Wong Pow Nee lost it to an opposition coalition headed by the Gerakan in the 1969 general elections. When he failed, he resigned from the state executive council. In the 1999 general elections, the Gerakan had 10 seats to the MCA nine. With the defections, the MCA had more seats, and demanded Dato' Sek, instead of Gerakan's Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon, be appointed chief minister. That scuttled when UMNO insisted the status quo remain. The two state assemblymen, it appears, had the backing of federal and state MCA, but when push came to show, both blinked.

THE MCA PRESIDENT, DATO' SERI Ling Liong Sik, is in a spot yet again. The MCA presidential council had directed its disciplinary committee to look into the National Front (BN) deputy president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's demand that two MCA state assemblymen in Penang be disciplined for abstaining from voting on a routine opposition motion. But the BN has no power to discipline a member of its component parties. Having raised the political flak, with even UMNO demanding their expulsion, and tow which he, in his actions, agreed. He did not challenge Dato' Seri Abdullah's demand. After having defied the UMNO demand about teaching science and mathematics in Chinese schools, he should have gathered his opponents in Team B and take a principled stand. Instead, he continued to isolate his deputy president, Dato' Seri Lim Ah Lek, who has returned to active politics and boycotted, with his supporters, the president council meeting over it.

The MCA President, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, who believes, like the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, the only way to run his party and portfolio is from distant capitals, returned home over the weekend to reaffirm how much he depends on UMNO's graciousness to survive. The deputy prime minister and UMNO deputy president demanded that two MCA state assembly men who abstained in the Penang state assembly be expelled for that. And ignored the nine state assembly men who stayed away. As he put it, the two had undermined the National Front's stability and self-respect, for which they ought to be expelled. The National Front (BN) whip did not order the BN state assembly men to vote for the motion. Nor the MCA. The bizarre reaction of others, including the MCA leaders, is as one expects: the BN leaders would not contradict the president and deputy president, however inimical it is to them and reality.

The Malay is angry he is harrassed, cheated, and sidelined by the government. The New Economic Policy, which was to help the Malay, now strangles him. It creates Malay entrepreneurs and billionaires who use their wealth, power, political connexions and Chinese partners to hobble the Malay more efficiently than the Chinese shopkeeper and rentier could in times past. The UMNO treasurer, Tun Daim Zainuddin, lost billions of ringgit of UMNO funds, but he is allowed to move with impunity. It is a scandal. But he is safe because he has friends in high places. The MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, has debts of hundreds of millions of ringgit in his arrogant and failed aim to make his son a Malaysian billionaire: he owes one Malaysian bank RM600 million and a similar amount to a Singapore bank. But if an unconnected and powerless Malay owes RM15,000 to a Malaysian bank, he would be made a bankrupt in double-quick time.

For the MCA President, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, the chickens, at last, come home to roost. He is forced to fight for his political and personal life, more so than at any time in the past. He cannot stay in the country on Monday, 18 November 2002, when the trial of Dato' Soh Chee Wen for stock market manipulations begins in Kuala Lumpur. So he is on a fortnight's official visit to China. The Nanyang Siang Pau, the Chinese newspaper the MCA controls, suggested his trip to China, and later, India is his swansong. He uses his untrammelled presidential power to force it insist the next day it is a rumour. The Nanyang did, but curiously it did not apologise nor refer to the "rumours" it floated the previous day; it only referred to Dr Ling telling his supporters not to listen to rumours about him. The huge debt the MCA took to acquire the Nanyang did not give it editorial control.

The MCA-owned newspaper, the Nanyang Siang Pau, had an article last Wednesday (06 November 2002) that the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, had left on a farewell working holiday to China. The next day, the Nanyang carries Dr Ling's call to party members not to listen to rumours he is about to resign on his return from China and India. Between the two statements lies a tale of intrigue and friction between the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, and Dr Ling. Heads would no doubt roll at the Nanyang for what happened. But would the Nanyang editors print a story about the MCA president's future without checking if it is true? The MCA president would not have planted his own political demise unless it is at a press conference so he could get the kudos for it. The only one who could order that sort of story must come from up higher: the MCA president's president aka the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed.

Newspapers praise and thank him for his gracious attendance at the opening of a goldsmith shop or a factory. This is all expected. So someone who wants to jump the queue and be noticed for his sycophancy has to think of a plan that would praise him without having to. Sychophancy is a work of art in Malaysia. The most brilliant leader for the Malays, Indians, and Chinese respectively are Dr Mahathir, Dato' Seri Dr S. Samy Vellu, and Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik.

After him came the screaming banshees known as BN leaders. The MIC leader, Dato' S. Samy Vellu, said Opposition parties should realise the country would enjoy more development if they join the BN. More important to him, he would also be returned unopposed from his Sungei Siput constituency. "PAS leaders especially should understand this and be more concernced about struggling for the people's interests." The MCA leader, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, says the Opposition should reconsider their stand. "We are inviting them to join us that we can be united to face challenges, especially economic challenges and colonisation. We have to stand together to face this." The Gerakan leader, Dato' Seri Lim Kheng Yaik, recalled how after the 1969 racial riots, "the then Prime Minister", Tun Abdul Razak invtied all opposition parties to join the ruling coalition "to concentrate on physical and social development and reduce politicking among the different parties." The prime minister then was Tengku Abdul Rahman, not Tun Razak. But it was Tun Razak, in 1973, four years after the riots, who expanded the Alliance coalition into the BN.

As in other political parties in the BN and out, this reveals a hidden desire for change its leaders do not want. Dr Lim, who had earlier indicated he would not continue in office, changes his mind. Whoever comes after him is untested, and the UMNO president, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, does not want new faces, with their new demands, to clutter an already impossible position he faces in the coming elections. So, Dr Lim is returned -- as usual, unopposed -- and the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, has a new lease of life. It has created a chain reaction: Dato' Lim Ah Lek, the MCA deputy president, bent on resignation, is beholden to stay on, if necessary to take on Dr Ling when the MCA next has an election for the president, or take over should Dr Ling be forced to leave earlier than he expects.

The Malaysian Chinese Association president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, insists he should continue, even after his solemn promise to step down. He changed his mind after Dr Mahathir, who is also Prime Minister and chairman of BN, ordered him to stay on. The Gerakan president, Dato' Seri Lim Kheng Yaik, clings to office on the same BN principle that once elected, he stays on, come hell or highwater, for life. The Parti Pesaka Bumiputra leader, Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, is in office for more than two decades. As has the Parti Bersatu Sabah leader, Dato' Joseph Pairin Kitingan. The opposition parties catch on to this convenient method of remaining in office. Every opposition party leader follows the time-tested BN method for its leader to stay in office unchallenged. The DAP leader, Mr Lim Kit Siang, was until recently its unchallenged leader for more than 30 years. He still exerts considerable influence from behind the scenes as chairman. In Malaysia, political parties exist, especially in BN, so its leaders can hold office for life.

He is to the Indian community what Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed is to UMNO, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik is to MCA, Dato' Seri Lim Kheng Yaik is to Gerakan, Dato' Amar James Wong Kim Minn to SNAP: a leader who has outlived his usefulness to the community he represents but who insists he is in absolute control, and dismiss any party member who thinks otherwise. The result is the community each represents is out of kilter with the leader. The leader is so intent on clinging to office that he does not care what happens to the community. He dictates what the community needs or wants, and since it cannot run what it wants, he asks his cronies to do so. He decides how it will run, and runs it. Anyone who questions is one who should be dispatched to kingdom come in the shortest time possible. Meanwhile, if the Indian community do not want AIMST, the labour market would have more Indian labourers than was ever thought possible. With logic like this, it is quite evident that Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu has finally reached Godhood in the Patheon of Bolehland's Brightest and the Best.

Pak Lah (1364)   United States (636)   Straits Times (412)   Samy Vellu (224)   Putra Jaya (200)   Chief Justice (200)   Saddam Hussein (188)   Vincent Tan (164)   Civil Service (154)   Parti KeADILan (148)   Islamic State (118)   Johore Bahru (100)   Sungei Buloh (94)   Bukit Tinggi (88)   Abdul Razak (80)   Pengkalen Pasir (68)   Ting Pek (64)   Armed Forces (59)   Soviet Union (58)

Malay Dominance (58)   Yong Teck (56)   Hong Kong (56)   Human Rights (56)   Syed Hamid (54)   Puteri UMNO (52)   Islam Hadhari (52)   Royal Commission (51)   Hussein Onn (51)   Rafidah Aziz (48)   Indian Congress (48)   Open House (44)   Vision Schools (44)   Shah Alam (44)   Malay Unity (42)   Chua Jui (42)   Abdul Taib (42)   Ampang Jaya (36)   Ras Adiba (36)

Osama Bin Laden (36)   Nik Aziz Nik (20)   Ling Liong Sik (18)   Lee Kuan Yew (18)

High Court Judge (14)   Wan Azizah Wan (9)   Lim Kit Siang (9)   Megat Junid Megat (8)

Mahathir (2960)

Anwar (2399)