MGG Pillai Commentary View

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The missing three MCA presidents

IGNORING THE PAST IS easy in Malaysia. The only view allowed is the official. It emanates from the top. Look how the news is reported. A newspaper may have reporters at the scene, but its editors only believe the 'true' version by Bernama, the official news agency. One newspaper stays out trouble by not bothering to report at all, with Bernama doing its reporting of local news. Television stations, other than the approved pro-Government, must rely on Bernama for their news content. A reporter may see but he did not see it if it is officially denied. Is it any wonder that rewriting and ignoring the past is a way of life. It does not matter what, look deep into it and you would find that what is, is not.

At the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) head office, there are photographs of its past presidents. Is it a historical record? No. Three names are missing. Two had been since the 1960s: Tun Lim Chong Eu, when he resigned as president in 1959, after 16 months, when the UMNO president, Tengku Abdul Rahman al-Haj, rejected his demand for more state and parliamentary constituencies to contest in the general elections of that year. Dato' Cheah Toon Lock, the Kedah MCA chief, was appointed acting president and held office until Tun Tan Siew Sin succeeded him. The other name missing is of Dato' Seri Neo Yee Pan, president between 1983-85. It cannot be an accident. It is a deliberate act to remove from its past those whom the present has no time for. Tun Lim's crime is that he joined two political parties in opposition to the MCA after he left, the United Democratic Party (UDP) and the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, where he found his niche.

Why did the MCA leaders remove the three names? If one man destroyed the MCA in Penang, it is Tun Lim, when Gerakan, in an opposition coalition, was returned to power in 1969. Tun Lim then joined the BN, after a split in Gerakan over it, and did all he could to keep the MCA out of the state. BN Chinese politics since then is a headlong clash between the MCA and Gerakan. It galls the MCA that Gerakan has led the BN government for 32 years, more than double its 14 years, from 1955-1969. The 1969 general election, and Tun Tan's decision to leave the governing coalition put paid to MCA's influence in government for ever. Whereas that of the Gerakan rose dramatically when it joined the BN coalition from the start in 1973. The MCA has not lost its plan to wrest Penang from the Gerakan. After the 1999 general election, it weaned two Gerakan state assemblymen to its ranks and reiterated its claim to have an MCA chief minister. UMNO would not hear of it.

Malaysian leaders believe their own propaganda. This is easy when any attempt to right the public record is ignored especially if the record is wrong. The UMNO now is not the UMNO of old, but acts as if it is. The UMNO now is UMNO Baru, formed from the ashes of the old UMNO, is a political party; the UMNO it replaced was a nationalist movement. UMNO Baru's first president is not Dato' Sir Onn Jaffar, but Tun Mahathir Mohamed. But rewriting history or erasing the past would not change the present. UMNO's problem now is its leaders' unfettered and unquestioned monolithic view which they would not allow to be challenged. What makes UMNO fear the future and failure is the Anwar Ibrahim affair. For the first time in decades, it made Malays and Malaysians realised there is another view, as valid and trenchant as the official. But it might be too late to be of any good to UMNO.

The MCA did what it could to reduce the Gerakan's influence in BN. When the MCA built its headquarters in Jalan Ampang, its major political anger was directed not, as one would expect, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) but the Gerakan and all it represented. It is in this contested circumstances that Tun Lim's name is dropped as MCA president. Dato' Cheah is not mentioned at all. But he was acting president. So was Dato' Seri Neo Yee Pan. They should be remembered for that. One MCA leader told me Dato' Cheah and Dato' Seri Neo, as acting presidents, did not count. I asked him then why Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting is there. The MCA rules now does not have acting presidents; the MCA presidential council appoints a new president in between election. In other words, if the present rules applied, both would have been presidents in their own right as Dato' Seri Ong.

The "official" MCA presidents are: Tun Sir Cheng-lock Tan (1949-58); Tun Tan Siew Sin (1961-74); Tan Sri Lee San Choon (1974-83); Mr Tan Koon Swan (1985-86); Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik (1986-2003); Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting (2003-present). Tun Lim and Dato' Cheah comes between Tun Sir Chenglock and his son, and Dato' Seri Neo between Tan Sri Lee and Mr Tan.

The MCA bends over backwards to right, but only just, its records. The Gerakan also wants to. Both fear, as UMNO, that the infighting could cost both constituencies in the coming general election. This threat comes not from the Opposition Chinese parties, notably the DAP, but from the Chinese cultural ground, which has found a voice of its own. Both the MCA and the Gerakan are afraid of this. Their fear is that this new voice may decide not to commit it to the BN. What maddens them is that since they have ignored this nascent voice for long, they do not know how widespread it is. Even granted that the MCA, more than Gerakan, on the Chinese ground is better placed to know this. But there is another difficulty. The leaders do not trust the workers on the ground. This is no different in UMNO, MIC and other BN parties. All they believe in is what they insist it is. And that is why it is in the mess it is today.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com