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The MCA Crisis: What you see is what is not

THE MCA CRISIS IS OVER. THE NEW president, Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting, is firmly in control. The MCA war on terror on the axis of evil has begun. Right has defeated might. The MCA is strong as ever. How could it be otherwise with the support of the anti-terror chief himself, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed. The Mahathir Controlled Association aka MCA proves yet again it can lead its leaders to great heights by short-changing its members and short-circuiting the rules of democratic change, and be victorious over the Chinese community as one George Walker Bush has over the Iraqis. Dato' Seri Ong is so grateful that that he gatecrashed an event in Lankawi over the weekend to thank the Great Dalang himself. He did not, it must be noted, thank the MCA, its central committee, its members in whose name he enjoys his good fortune. Nothing, in other words, has changed in the MCA transition. What you see is what is not.

As the dust settles, nothing is settled. Immediately after the central committee, which the outgoing president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, controlled, elected Dato' Seri Ong as president, a compromise between the two factions - the forces of right led by Dr Ling and the axis of evil led by his deputy president, Dato' Seri Lim Ah Lek - hammered out by that self-important crony, Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing, he who telephones ahead to ask if Dr Mahathir attends to a function he and decides accordingly. But nothing changed. Dato' Seri Ong, in his first presidential order, retained all Dr Ling's appointees, all his men.

If Dr Mahathir wanted the MCA issue settled, he should have insisted upon the new President to hold office until the MCA's next general assembly. The MCA central committee postponed that election from last year to 2005. It was part of Dr Ling's plan to hijack the presidency and rout his political opponents. The MCA central committee, under its constitution as amended to give the President unfettered powers, elects one amongst them as president in a vacancy. It is so the outgoing President would have a successor beholden to him. It could not be otherwise. The MCA investment arm is in shambles: it bought the Nanyang Siang Pau group in a political vendetta to rein in its critics, and loses money by the bushel. Dr Ling wants to control the finances of the MCA's Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. But all is not working as he planned.

UMNO is weak and its president weaker. But the MCA needs UMNO, its leaders the UMNO president. But when UMNO is weak, as now, the MCA leaders do not hesitate to wring concessions. In the runup to the crisis, Dr Mahathir had appointed the UMNO deputy president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, to mediate. Dr Ling refused to meet Pak Lah. At that meeting, the new MCA president warned Pak Lah MCA could pull out of the National Front (BN) if he had to negotiate with him or mediate with the Mahathir mediator, Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing. This gambit worked but not for long. Pak Lah succeeds Dr Mahathir as prime minister in November but whose succession is by no means assured. Unless he acts firmly. He must show his mettle as UMNO president and Prime Minister. He cannot let matters flounder as under Dr Mahathir. And he must look beyond the coalition leaders and act swiftly to right the wrongs they inflict upon the communities they nominally represent. Or someone else will.

Malaysia is on the skids. There is no leadership. The Prime Minister is quick to take offence at any attempt to right it. He must not be second-guessed, no one should take credit except him. The sun shines by the grace of Dr Mahathir. What happens after Dr Mahathir retires at end-October? One fanciful theory, with much support from cronies and acolytes, is he would not. At UMNO's 57th anniversary celebrations, one group was to present a resolution to ask him not to resign. But it was ordered not to. By not Dr Mahathir but the underground forces backing the leaders-to-come. That would ensure he retires when he said he would. It is in this uncertainty under a new Prime Minister, the MCA president and ex-president must manouevre. And without the MCA's wholehearted support. Adding to the confusion that must come within months of the new Prime Minister in office.

If Dato' Seri Ong as MCA president takes it as a cue to redress the community's cultural, political, social problems, work hard at it, and tranform himself as their leader, then how he came into power, or his links to the triads, would not be an issue. But he would not. He would hold on to office come what may, and destroy the other faction. Where once the MCA allowed for all views, over the years, it now allows only one, the leader's. It took that from UMNO. As every BN coalition party. And destroyed the link between the ground and leaders. But UMNO has boxed the MCA yet again. The New Straits Times reported Dato' Seri Ong would be transport minister, the "traditional" post of the MCA president.

In the games UMNO plays, it decided, and MCA accepted, that since Dr Ling was 17 years in that ministry, it is the ministry of future MCA presidents in the cabinet. No doubt future Gerakan presidents would be primary industries minister, MIC presidents works minister, and Sarawak and Sabah in their irrelevant portfolios. If Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu succeeds in his bid for a second Indian cabinet post, that would come not from the MIC but from an equally irrelevant Indian party, the People's Progressive Party (PPP); not the MIC deputy president, Dato' S. Subramaniam but the PPP president, Dato' M. Kayveas. Unless Pak Lah would rather play his own games.

The BN political ethos is damned but UMNO will not consider a change. After the 1969 racial riots, UMNO, in the changes forced through at the point of a gun to ensure Malay dominance, removed all policy making portfolios from the non-Malays. Once the MCA held the finance and commerce portfolios. Today, the Chinese deputies in the Malaysian government exist to answer politically inconvenient questions in Parliament and elsewhere the Malay minister or deputy would not. The Prime Minister plays games with all and sundry. He did not accept Dr Ling's undated letter of resignation, leaving the country guessing if he would. It made good newspaper copy but it revealed a dalang (puppet master) whoi no longer is. He talks of a mythical cabinet reshuffle. But, as he told the press before his latest irrelevant sojourn overseas, he has not thought about it. As he did not think about Dr Ling's offer to resign last year. But rest assured, he tells us, he would consult Pak Lah, his successor, about it. If it is so pressing, why does he not get on with it. If it is not, why not leave it to his successor?

The short answer to that is: UMNO and the succession is in a mess. Unless Pak Lah acts decisively once in office, throw out the time-wasters and the no-hopers - not all in UMNO - and present a cabinet Malaysians can at least look up to, he is in serious trouble. Politics has strayed from the apparatchiks to the people. But the leaders do not accept it. The political vibrance amongst the young of all races gives hope to Malaysian democracy. If it is not nurtured, co-opted, and celebrated, the consequence of that is too awesome to contemplate.

A whiff of that in 1998 when UMNO sacked its deputy president, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and later had jailed, led to its near-fatal collapse. The lesson is not learnt as UMNO continues to prepare for its future with its feet firmly in quicksand. The MCA leaders know it well enough, and they cling on to make hay while the sun shines. The BN, in short, is the coalition of the willing to be corrupted as dressed up as Malaysia's contribution to multiracial politics. The UMNO president cracks the whip, as the US president in another context, to keep coalition leaders as servile sepoys. And finds resistance. Even Saudi Arabia leaders realises they cannot be Washington's sepoy any more; the ground would not allow it. But MCA believes it can as UMNO's. Perfidious self-interest, not realpolitik, dictates it. It cannot last.

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