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Could the National Front survive money politics?

THE MALAYSIAN CHINESE ASSOCIATION (MCA) PRESIDENT, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, is shocked and horrified at the millions of ringgit "some" MCA politicians spend to be where they are in the party. Money politics now creeps into thd party. It is worrisome, he told an MCA gathering in Johore Bahru on Sunday, 03 March 2003. But since it is only millions of ringgit, it is 'not serious'. MCA would no doubt act only when billions of ringgit are involved. He does not explain his role in MCA to encourage money politics. He used it to the hilt to throw his opponents out. Like President George W. Bush and the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, he believes in only one prevailing view. His. But it is challenged.

So he lobs on to his opponents his sins of ommission and commission. An energised opposition, he insists, cannot succeed on the strength of its convictions. How could the people be so ungrateful as to desert him for all the good he has done them? But they do, so it must be money politics. When he and his team indulges in it, it is but a minor pardonable quiggle in its concern for the people. When his opponents indulge in it, it is proof yet of money politics destroying the MCA. He does not accept that the MCA is destroyed not by money politics but by its presidents. This is not confined to MCA alone. It is endemic in the National Front (BN), of which MCA is a member.

It is part of a campaign to show his opponents to be men of no principle, that they would stoop so low as to to bribe their way into power. He embarked on a theme the MCA secretary-general had declared in a speech: he said it was so common these days, and took the form of dinners, gifts, trips to Genting Highlands, Langkawi, Haadyai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou and study loans for members' children. If money is a criterion for selecting leaders, the MCA is in deep trouble. Some leaders are so obsessed with 'image-building' that they neglect their work. "By looking at these symptoms, we know the MCA is sick. But it is not terminally sick. It can be healed because its enemies are not outsiders but from within," he added. It is this theme that Dr Ling picks up: the enemies of the party are the loyal MCA members who believes Dr Ling has outlived his usefulness and damages morale every day he is in office.

Money politics comes alive during elections, party or national. Even that miniscule and irrelevant party, the People's Progressive Party, PPP, is guilty of it: a party official sued its president, now a deputy minister, for the return of money he paid for an honour from the King he did not get. It is considered right and proper for ministers and others to indulge in money politics as a perk of office. It is not confined to BN. Every opposition that took office with high intentions eventually succumb to it. Easy money is difficult to resist. And business men and others are only too eager to push money towards politicians and others in return for lucrative contracts and special favours.

The BN defines 'money politics' narrowly: money spent indiscriminately in party elections to be elected to party office. It ignores every other corruption of it. So Dr Ling refers not to the general corruption that MCA leaders, from his and his opponents' camps, freely indulge in every day, but when his opponent can match or better the funds he throws to defeat them. Dr Ling made or had access to billions - what his son got is but a fraction of what the MCA leaders had access to - but he loses ground in MCA. The two factions in MCA has agreed, if what I am told is right, on a popular MCA leader who would be acting president and oversee the party elections. Dr Ling understands what this means. He and his team are in deep trouble. So blame his deputy president, Dato' Seri Lim Ah Lek and his team, of indulging in money politics. But there is a small problem: he cried wolf so often that he is now disbelieved.

The MCA is not alone. The UMNO is in the throes of a leadership struggle. Its long-time president, Dr Mahathir, retires later this year, and the infighting has begun to establish the line of succession. The deputy president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, would succeed Dr Mahathir as Prime Minister, but he could well face a bruising fight to be UMNO president. As battle lines are drawn, two UMNO vice presidents are intent on politically destroying the third, and each, according to PAS sources, offered RM2 million for a strong candidate against the UMNO vice-president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak in his parliamntary constituency of Pekan in Pahang; one, Tan Sri Mohamed Taib, wanted a weak PAS candidate in Shah Alam in Selangor as well so he could return to federal politics in strength. It is he who went to Australia on a holiday some years ago with RM2.4 million in cash in his briefcase. But understand that is not money politics nor corruption but, in BN's view, a legitimate perk of office.

That kind of money cannot be corruption or the illgotten gains of money politics, but a perk of office. His successor in Selangor, Dato' Seri Mohamed Khir Toyo, rails against corruption and money politics, but is his hands clean? The state is rent with his new found wealth. When the state executive council, the state cabinet, has to decide on land applications an licences of all kinds, and the BN parties has need for more money than the law allows for elections, the leaders are tempted with corruption every minute of the day. No one in office is immune from it. The law against corruption and misuse of office is so drafted that unless the Prime Minister authorises prosecution, it is a dead letter. He acts only if he is challenged. So, his former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, is in jail but not Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, Dr Ling, Tun Daim Zainuddin, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, many a state mentri besar, senior civil servants and others.

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