MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

The Penang MCA duo: Trading insults in limbo

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.

Playing to the gallery, as the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed did, does not correct the faults in how the pair is punished. When all parties play fast and loose with the rules, the mask of unity and uniformity will collapse, as it has in this pathetic attempt to show who is in charge. But that is what happened. The two were painted out as BN traitors, with UMNO stepping in to demand their expulsion. It was mob rule of a type BN takes severe objections to when it happens in an opposition party.

The MCA had to act against the duo they had set up to abstain and create a minor kerfuffle. And did at speed to suspend them indefinitely. Without explaining why. All Dr Ling would say is: "The penalty is serious and appropriate and that is all I can say at this moment." They could, of course, appeal to the Central Committee within 14 days. If the duo had any political sense, they would not, and let Dr Ling and his presidential council flounder in its injustice. All parties to it bent or ignored the rules to force a result UMNO demanded. This would be yet another reason why Dr Ling cannot stay on as MCA president. That the president's men in the council voted as a block, with one abstention, and the deputy president's men stayed away, only shows Dr Ling and his men have egg on their faces after being caught out.

What does this indefinite suspension mean? They are allowed to remain elected state assemblymen as "they still have the responsibility to serve their constituents well." This is curious, since they are punished for doing just that. Where do they sit at the next state assembly session? Is the BN whip withdrawn from them? If it is, are they on their own, and can vote as they please? If it is not, what does this indefinite suspension mean in practice?

All it shows at the end of the day is the MCA's, and BN's, impotence and made possible by insisting on actions it cannot justify. Especially when the Gerakan president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, accuses the MCA Penang state chairman, Dato' Wong Kam Hoong, as the instigator of the protest against the RM1.02 billion Penang Outer Ring Road project. Dato' Wong replies in kind, blaming the Penang Gerakan chief minister, Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon, for the mess. It is this perennial quarrel between the Gerakan and MCA that framed this mess. The MCA has lost out, for it now seems certain, when the general elections comes around, it would be limited to the seats it had in 1999; the two Gerakan defections which caused the crisis in Penang last year would not mean the MCA would get more seats to contest; it could even lose a third, the state assembly constituency of Jawi, whose assembly woman is one of two suspended.

This sniping would benefit neither and strengthen UMNO's claim to be the next chief minister. UMNO cannot and should not, For that would only build Chinese resentment against the BN. This crisis has come at an unfortunate time, following the widespead anger over education and cultural policy imposed from above by fiat and when challenged, turned into a racial confrontations. The political climate is so tense that every minor political abberation, as the Penang MCA duo's action is, turns quickly into a racial confrontation. The matter of how the duo voted was argued in the open in the media giving neither a chance to pull back. It showed the BN to be dominated by UMNO, and what it wanted, BN was happy to provide. There is no consultation within BN, contrary to what we are told, and the BN is UMNO when what it wants must be framed in a multiracial format. In Penang, it wanted to blacken MCA. It did. But if BN must vote against in all cases, as we are told it must, when then did UMNO in Trengganu abstain when the hudud laws were presented before the state assembly there? The BN is in more trouble than it believes it is in.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my