So, why did Dato' Ruhani make the fuss? The government has just declared Malaysia to be an Islamic state, but would not discuss it in Parliament. It is not necessary, says the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, since the government has already announced it. The non-Malays and the non-Muslims worry about their fate when important issues like this are studiously kept out of parliamentary discussion. PAS had tried without fail, well before the Prime Minister's capricious decision to declare Malaysia as an Islamic state.

The MCA is in good hands, its president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, is in good odour with the National Front president, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed. So the official spin. Not many, especially the community in whose name it is in the power-sharing coalition, believe this. Internal fissures in the leadership began when Dr Ling, convinced he is now annointed by Dr Mahathir to lead the Chinese, thought he would up the ante and threaten to resign.

Dr Ling is nervous. He wants to be re-elected MCA president next year. If he fails, he is out of the cabinet and ignored by those who made him president. What frightens him no end is this real fear that Dato' Chua would challenge him for the president. He could possible stall that. But could he if Dato' Chua decides on the deputy presidency as well? If Dato' Chua decides to contest both posts, it puts Dr Ling into a straitjacket. He would have to defend his post to prevent Dato' Chua from neutralising him. I am not sure if Dato' Chua can succeed, but he knows that Dr Ling is vulnerable and can be frightened into submission. In the long history of the MCA, no president has come to office without a bitter fight, leaving the marks unhealed for the rest of their lives. Ask Tun Lim Chong Eu, Tan Sri Lee San Choon, Dato' Seri Neo Yee Pan, Mr Tan Koon Swan, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik. The other two MCA presidents -- Tun Tan Cheng Lock and his son, Tun Tan Siew Sin -- are dead.

The MCA president, Ling Liong Sik, and his Talebans, have split the MCA in ways his predecessors could. His anger at the Lim Ah Lek faction for objecting to the MCA's pyrrhic purchase of Nanyang Press Holdings remains undimmed. Ling's anger is doubly compounded by his own ill-conceived threat to resign last year and then refusing to when the Prime Minister and UMNO president, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, wanted him to continue.

Last week, the Straits Times in Singapore quoted shipping sources to say that ships from a score of Muslim countries may land in US ports but not their citizens, Malaysia one of them. It was unchallenged. The minister of transport, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik let it pass. The MISC, the company whose ships land in US ports, said nary a word. Wisma Putra retreated into its accustomed rigor mortis. The New Straits Times and the Star have correspondents in New York and the former as well in Los Angeles. Neither checked its veracity amidst the biggest story in town. In other words, one must assume truth in the Straits Times report.

First, the MCA took a leaf from the MIC manual for conducting meetings, and hurled chairs and whatever came to hand at each other; then it took a leaf from the PAS manual on how to let the world know what it cannot report. By combing the two manuals, MCA president is made to shiver in his pants. That he does with the ground at odds with him, whose recent decisions can cost them aplenty in the future. The Nanyang Press purchase is not the good buy the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, crowed about. He is sold a lemon, and he puts the MCA investments in deep trouble.

Chang was appointed with the MCA in the dark about it. The president, Dr Ling Liong Sik, was caught flatfooted when he was asked to comment on it. Dr Mahathir needs the Chinese community to obviate his declining Malay support. But he seeks it at a time when the Chinese cultural ground, like the Malay, is fed up of its political leaders.

The I-shall-resign-I-shall-not-resign MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, as his I-shall-resign-I-shall-not-resign predecessors, is forced to look into MCA party allegations of phantom voters. These phantom voters, like Mayor Daley's constituents in Chicago, long reside in the graveyards of the division in question. And until party organisation was reformed, just one division -- the undivided Petaling Jaya division -- sent more delegates to the MCA annual meetings than five states. The resolution of that brought him into power as MCA president. The Nanyang Press fiasco now lands Dr Ling in an invidious spot. He forced the sale through, against much opposition, puts the MCA's finances at risk, but still insist he must be obeyed because the Prime Minister wants the MCA rank-and-file to accept him as their leader, however unpopular he is.

The MCA President, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, is upset. He faces incipient revolt within his ranks. He is unconcerned, so he make it seem, is only sad about it. The MCA Youth general meeting set the tone for what is to come. In a raucous melee yesterday (02 August 01), delegates threw chairs and hurled karate chops and blows at each other, with the proceedings enlivened with a false alarm of a bomb threat. There is nothing in this for Dr Ling to write home about: it is sign of an open revolt which in MCA's case is linked to the presidential decision to buy the Nanyang Press Group without the usual checks and balances in place. The Chinese community is incensed that the newspaper group is now under the direct control of the MCA, as the English-language The Star already is. The MCA could not have gone into it at a worse time. Dr Ling, like the president of UMNO, has outlived his use in MCA, but believes he is still needed.

Its president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, knows it would promote Malaysia as a centre of academic excellence. Not so, says its secretary-general, Dato' Seri Ting Chew Peh. It is to enforce party unity, above all. The MCA can be expected to prove itself without doubt how it could mess up what it sets out to do. Its leaders should shut up and work at its setting up, instead of casual words of hope and intent off the cuff.

The MCA president, Ling Liong Sik, received a standing ovation when he announced on Sunday, at the Perak MCA annual general meeting, the party is allowed, at last, a university. He got more than he dared hope: upgrade Tunku Abdul Rahman College to a university.

The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, thinks, into his third decade in office, with his difficulties with the Chinese community, with his more than usual share of problems, he is better off with a Chinese political secretary. So a little-known 51-year-old lawyer, Mr Matthias Chang, is sworn in. The Chinese newspapers could not decide how his name should be written in Chinese and each had its own variation. This would not have arisen if he was a popular figure in the Chinese community. The MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, thought it a good choice; it did not bother him that the Prime Minister's first Chinese political secretary is not an MCA member, perhaps only glad he is not from the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia. Besides, he probably was not consulted about the appointment.

The Chinese communities kept their own counsel. The MCA bought the Nanyang Press over their heads, insisting what makes economic sense is good for the community. It does not, but the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, is convinced that if he wins, the community wins. It is how the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed views his community, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu his. So, when the EGM allowed Ling to go ahead with his purchases with a wafer think majority, MCA was told, not by its community leaders, but by the Prime Minister that the factions must kiss and make-up.

The MCA president, Ling Liong Sik, must rue the day he thought he was the voice of the Chinese community, and could do as he pleased. It is the mistake his predecessors, Lee San Choon, Neo Yee Pan and Tan Koon Swan committed. They did not survive. Neither could he. Not with the law suits swirling around him over business commitments involving his son and the growing anger of the Chinese community which sees him as no more a friend.

The MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, buys a newspaper group up for sale, and a gang fight between its grandees breaks out. The "Gang of 32" takes issue with the "Gang of 8" and it is over who should be consulted before mortgaging the party to the banks to buy it. The venue is the media, and Malaysians get a rare glimpse of how a leading member of the governing coalition conducts its affairs. It does not; it leaves that to its elected dictatorial president with powers to supercede its constitution.

The arrogance he reveals is distributed down the line that it is now taken for granted that the National Front response to any issue is steeped in irreversible arrogance. The MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, rides rough shod to buy two Chinese newspapers and believes his opponents do not what know what they talk about.

The Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, pronounced it a business deal when the MCA bought Nanyang Press Holdings Berhad. The MCA president, Dr Ling Liong Sik, rammed the deal through, counting on his executive powers and his majority in the party presidential council and the central executive committee. He ignored the rumblings within the Chinese community, which looked upon it as a deliberate attempt to stifle the community's voice.

The MCA president, Dr Ling Liong Sik, is gungho about it, even if the deputy president, Lim Ah Lek, and others are opposed to it. Now, the prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, supports it, and swears to high heaven that it is not politically motivated, which in Malaysia's highly-charged political atmosphere, means it is.

Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik can promise the earth to attract the traveller and airline to KLIA. No one believes him. An airport is useful only if there is a quick and easy way out of it. Bangkok's Don Maung airport often is a mess, but once one clears it, one is on its way in minutes. This is so even in airports one shudders of landing in. The KLIA has become a white elephant. It is stuck in the middle of nowhere. Airlines find they have to pick up their passengers if they want business. This was resented, and some were warned off. The excellent limousine service should be used, they said. Five of them moved out. The KLIA chaps do not realise that if airlines want to retain their passengers, they must provide what the system does not. More would opt out. And it would be difficult when all is in place to ask them to come back.

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