In debate, Soi Lek gives himself away: He has no answers for the Chinese

Inspite and despite the so-called great debate just concluded between Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and MCA president Chua Soi Lek, and away from it, the latter continues with his traditional themes to scare the Chinese into submission: money and hudud, among other things.

The only way that the Chinese will buy Chua’s talk is if they had suddenly undergone metamorphosis and regressed sufficiently, intelligence-wise, on the evolutionary scale to prevent them from seeing through the MCA leader’s self-serving double-talk.

Not to hit below the belt, but there’s no guarantee at all that Chua can change his spots, and suddenly be the benchmark for being faithful and loyal to the Chinese community. After all, he could humiliate his own wife in public with an adultery case when a more caring and responsible man would have opted to quit to spare his partner of decades further pain for what is after his own sin and error.

Who's Chua to talk about hudud when he doesn't even understand the federal constitution

The MCA leader is not an expert in hudud criminal law or the Federal Constitution.

To put it mildly, the MCA’s line on hudud is nothing but a pack of politically-motivated lies. This is an issue routinely dredged up by MCA leaders and repeated mindlessly by the mainstream media to convey the public impression that the Chinese community is concerned and alarmed over hudud, a non-existent issue.

The Federal Constitution is clear in the sense that Malaysia is a secular nation despite Article 3 stating that Islam is the religion of the Federation, but so are other religions. Nowhere does Article 3 state that Islam is the official or national religion. In Sabah and Sarawak, Islam is not even the religion of those parts of the Federation, as underlined by the 1963 Malaysia Agreement.

Chua also belabours under the misconception that the Chinese believe in only one thing and are willing to accept any amount of abuses to focus on that belief: that money is the most important thing in the world and that nothing else, even maruah, matters.

In short, the Chinese should focus on making money – as much of it as possible – and support Umno to handle the politics, according to Chua.

MCA dying for a share of Umno's loot

Left unsaid is the fact that Chua’s task is to gather the Chinese votes for Umno in return for a share, albeit smaller, of the loot. In that sense, Chua  and MCA are no better, focused on making as much money as possible for themselves, no matter what price the Chinese have to pay in the process for their greed, avarice and unbridled ambition.

This is the same discredited approach used by MIC and other political parties in subservience to Umno in the ruling Barisan Nasional. Politics of this kind has seen not only the Chinese and the Indians but also Dusun, Dayak, and other Sabah and Sarawak leaders selling their people lock, stock and barrel to Umno for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver.

The Malay-speaking communities have not benefited either – the emergence of Pas and PKR is proof of the need for alternative – as Umno has degenerated into a den of thieves serving a few families at the expense of the nation.

Each Umno branch seems to be owned, controlled and managed by mini-political dynasties and warlords and excluding others from the Malay-speaking communities. They don't give an inch, convert night to day and day to night and think nothing of selling their souls just to stay in power.

This is the kind of politics, which Chua and his kind in MCA worship and hope to emulate one day if the community is stupid enough to vote them into public office.

No more opportunities for the Chinese

The Chinese, the others as well, are not better off under the brand of politics practised by Umno. The Chinese know which side their bread is buttered.

It’s an open secret that opportunities for the Chinese in business, others as well, to make money, are increasingly being restricted under the Umno Government.

The GLCs, the mother of all distortions of the economy, account for half the market capitalization of the stock market and virtually keep the Chinese out from any big and lucrative sectors of the economy. Nothing could be more opportunistic than this daylight robbery perpetrated by the ruling elite.

The GLCs are a gross deviation and distortion of the New Economic Policy (1970-1990) which pledged, among its three tenets, that there would be no identification of race – in fact only the ruling elite -- with economic function and place of residence.

Article 153 of the Federal Constitution holds that the legitimate interests of the non-Malay communities will be respected.

The Government has no business being in business and the GLCs are the clearest evidence of the Umno Government since ex-premier Mahathir Mohamad and his successors being the most anti-Chinese and anti-people government in Malaysia.

Bankruptcy and plunging stock market

Chua’s warning to the Chinese that the stock market, among others, will drop if the Opposition comes into power and the nation will be bankrupt in no time is disingenuous, to say the least.

For starters, is he deaf, dumb and blind to the GLCs which act as a damper on the local stock market? So much of the stock are tied up to be in fact immobile and this reduces the opportunities to make money on the stock market.

Even so the Government, the MCA included, need not worry about the Chinese managing their money.

The community has done a far better job in money management than the Government which has been steadily indebting the nation, especially the generations unborn, so that the ruling elite can feather their nests from the Public Treasury. The Shahrizat Jalil-NFC scandal is the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Make no mistake, MCA leaders hunger to be part of such scams, and are prepared to look the other war in return for a share of the spoils of office. The investing Chinese also know the stock market has a mind of its own and reacts to any situation where money can be made. If there is some making money, there must be others who would not be that fortunate.

Even in an up market, there are shares that keep going down and vice versa. The fate of the stock market does not hinge on the BN alone – the GLCs aside -- but on a variety of factors including the all-important confidence factor.

If money leaves the stock market, it will not end up under the mattress in the kampung, but will find its way into financial institutions and the forex market, either locally or abroad, and make its way back again to the local stock market.

So stop the lies, but perhaps that might be asking too much from the MCA and BN.

Malaysia Chronicle