DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang's decision to vie for a parliamentary seat in Johor has placed the proverbial cat among the pigeons.
Successively, the speculation has been that MCA president Chua Soi Lek and, when he proved unwilling, Johor Menteri Besar Abdul Ghani Othman would be fielded against Kit Siang.
Their status and identity confirmed the gravity with which the Kit Siang foray into Johor was viewed by the state BN.
The thinking was that Johor BN cannot rely on someone lacking in national name-recognition to repel Kit Siang's challenge. An opposition giant would have to be contested by a BN formidable.
Jason Teoh, the candidate MCA has been priming for the seat they have long held, is an up-and-coming politician but lacks the stature to take on one of Malaysian politics' storied durables.
Shortly after Pakatan Rakyat supremo Anwar Ibrahim announced in Johor Bahru on March 18 that Kit Siang would contest the Gelang Patah seat, Johor BN went into a huddle.
They reckoned they could not take the challenge posed by the DAP stalwart's candidature lightly, especially when it was being billed as the focal thrust of a DAP-driven Pakatan campaign to make inroads into a BN stronghold state.
Johor, the founding place of Umno, is a BN bastion and the model for intra-coalition relations among component parties. Rarely is the state in the news for discord among state BN allies.
Johor's chief ministers from Umno would take care of the politics and deftly handle matters considered sensitive to the palace, while MCA would smooth the folds within which the Chinese business community nurtured and grew their interests.
It was a convenient and cozy arrangement that ensured the state would be impenetrable to political groups hostile to Umno-BN.
Johor's exemption from the effects of political ructions in the rest of the country was highlighted in GE12 whose results left the state BN relatively unscathed.
Ploy to get rid of Ghani?
But shifting political tides elsewhere in the country cannot be kept out for long from contiguous other parts; any reprieve these may enjoy is only temporary.
Thus when Kit Siang announced that DAP would try, in GE13, to penetrate fortress Johor and offered himself as point man for the incursion, Johor BN went into battle stations mode.
After tossing around several propositions on how to tackle the DAP threat to BN's electoral hegemony, the ruling coalition's state chief Ghani suggested in jest that it looked like he would have to take on Kit Siang in Gelang Patah.
The suggestion, not intended in earnest, was immediately taken up by those who attended the state BN meeting.
Ghani is regarded as a competent leader whose analytical acuity, moderate political stances, low-key but effective style, and diplomatic panache at handling the intricacies of sultan-MB relations are the reasons observers cite for his longevity - he has been MB from 1995 - as Johor CEO.
E
mbellishing all this is his popularity among the three races, owed to an ability to exude professional and fairness, traits he acquired in academia, where he served a stint as an economics professor, and honed in handling cabinet portfolios, where his analytical skills and penchant for listening to the best advice on offer have marked him out as among Umno's best and brightest politicians.
Little wonder Johor BN quickly embraced the notion that Ghani would be the best bet against the marauding Kit Siang.
Furthermore, BN chief Najib Abdul Razak was not averse to the idea, though he had worked out an understanding with the sultan in March last year that Ghani would continue as Johor MB for some years after GE13.
The sultan is said to prefer his English College classmate Khaled Nordin, the current higher education minister, as MB after GE13 but, in deference to the PM's wishes, was willing to wait out an extension to Ghani's tenure.
Ghani, whose relations with the palace are presently not as good as was the case when Najib worked out the extension last year, was willing to contest Gelang Patah, provided he could keep his state seat of Serom.
This was going to be a tricky arrangement because those opposed to Ghani in Johor Umno - there are not a few and these are invariably associated with Umno deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin - saw the proposal to field him for Parliament against Kit Siang as opportune for getting rid of him, provided he is not given a chance to simultaneously contest a state seat.
San Choon's feat revisited
While the permutations of the proposition to field Ghani were being bandied about, a wealthy businessman-cum-adviser to Johor MCA urged party president Soi Lek to take on Kit Siang.
This tycoon advised Sok Lek to confront the Chinese community with the starkness of the choice that faced them in Gelang Patah where they constitute 52 percent of the electorate: either they vote him in or to write the MCA's death warrant by electing Kit Siang.
It was a choice that former MCA president Lee San Choon presented Chinese voters in Seremban in the April 1982 general election when he moved from a safe seat in Johor to contest against then DAP chairman Dr Chen Man Hin in the latter's bailiwick.
In the run-up to that election, Kit Siang had taunted MCA leaders over their fear of taking on the DAP in the urban constituencies where Chinese voters comprise a heavy majority.
San Choon, a politician with an aversion for theatrics, quietly moved the voter registrations of his trade unions friends - he had legions of them as labour minister - to Seremban while all the while disdaining to respond to Kit Siang's taunt.
On nominations day in GE6, he filed to contest in Seremban and went on to obtain a wafer-thin 800-plus majority over the popular and likeable Chen.
The San Choon victory was the beginning of an MCA ascendancy over DAP that weakened the latter's claim to invincibility in Chinese-majority urban seats.
The MCA businessman-adviser in Johor tantalised Soi Lek with the possibility of a repeat of San Choon's feat.
Soi Lek was interested and an MCA delegation went to Pekan on the March 23-24 weekend where the PM was campaigning in his backyard to seek his endorsement. Najib was supportive of the idea but an initially eager Soi Lek soon chickened out.
That left Ghani holding the bag and now he is fighting to see if he can be retained to contest his state seat of Serom, a lifeline he has to have to keep his MB post just in case he loses to Kit Siang for Parliament.
His post-GE13 case for an extension of tenure as MB is up in the air given his newly frosty relations with the palace. And Najib, not known for gumption when faced with the powerful, is not saying anything to Ghani about an extension of tenure.
Thus what began in jest for Ghani has morphed into a deadly game of survival in Johor Umno and national politics.
Successively, the speculation has been that MCA president Chua Soi Lek and, when he proved unwilling, Johor Menteri Besar Abdul Ghani Othman would be fielded against Kit Siang.
Their status and identity confirmed the gravity with which the Kit Siang foray into Johor was viewed by the state BN.
The thinking was that Johor BN cannot rely on someone lacking in national name-recognition to repel Kit Siang's challenge. An opposition giant would have to be contested by a BN formidable.Jason Teoh, the candidate MCA has been priming for the seat they have long held, is an up-and-coming politician but lacks the stature to take on one of Malaysian politics' storied durables.
Shortly after Pakatan Rakyat supremo Anwar Ibrahim announced in Johor Bahru on March 18 that Kit Siang would contest the Gelang Patah seat, Johor BN went into a huddle.
They reckoned they could not take the challenge posed by the DAP stalwart's candidature lightly, especially when it was being billed as the focal thrust of a DAP-driven Pakatan campaign to make inroads into a BN stronghold state.
Johor, the founding place of Umno, is a BN bastion and the model for intra-coalition relations among component parties. Rarely is the state in the news for discord among state BN allies.
Johor's chief ministers from Umno would take care of the politics and deftly handle matters considered sensitive to the palace, while MCA would smooth the folds within which the Chinese business community nurtured and grew their interests.
It was a convenient and cozy arrangement that ensured the state would be impenetrable to political groups hostile to Umno-BN.
Johor's exemption from the effects of political ructions in the rest of the country was highlighted in GE12 whose results left the state BN relatively unscathed.
Ploy to get rid of Ghani?
But shifting political tides elsewhere in the country cannot be kept out for long from contiguous other parts; any reprieve these may enjoy is only temporary.
Thus when Kit Siang announced that DAP would try, in GE13, to penetrate fortress Johor and offered himself as point man for the incursion, Johor BN went into battle stations mode.
After tossing around several propositions on how to tackle the DAP threat to BN's electoral hegemony, the ruling coalition's state chief Ghani suggested in jest that it looked like he would have to take on Kit Siang in Gelang Patah.
The suggestion, not intended in earnest, was immediately taken up by those who attended the state BN meeting.
Ghani is regarded as a competent leader whose analytical acuity, moderate political stances, low-key but effective style, and diplomatic panache at handling the intricacies of sultan-MB relations are the reasons observers cite for his longevity - he has been MB from 1995 - as Johor CEO.
E
mbellishing all this is his popularity among the three races, owed to an ability to exude professional and fairness, traits he acquired in academia, where he served a stint as an economics professor, and honed in handling cabinet portfolios, where his analytical skills and penchant for listening to the best advice on offer have marked him out as among Umno's best and brightest politicians.Little wonder Johor BN quickly embraced the notion that Ghani would be the best bet against the marauding Kit Siang.
Furthermore, BN chief Najib Abdul Razak was not averse to the idea, though he had worked out an understanding with the sultan in March last year that Ghani would continue as Johor MB for some years after GE13.
The sultan is said to prefer his English College classmate Khaled Nordin, the current higher education minister, as MB after GE13 but, in deference to the PM's wishes, was willing to wait out an extension to Ghani's tenure.
Ghani, whose relations with the palace are presently not as good as was the case when Najib worked out the extension last year, was willing to contest Gelang Patah, provided he could keep his state seat of Serom.
This was going to be a tricky arrangement because those opposed to Ghani in Johor Umno - there are not a few and these are invariably associated with Umno deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin - saw the proposal to field him for Parliament against Kit Siang as opportune for getting rid of him, provided he is not given a chance to simultaneously contest a state seat.
San Choon's feat revisited
While the permutations of the proposition to field Ghani were being bandied about, a wealthy businessman-cum-adviser to Johor MCA urged party president Soi Lek to take on Kit Siang.
This tycoon advised Sok Lek to confront the Chinese community with the starkness of the choice that faced them in Gelang Patah where they constitute 52 percent of the electorate: either they vote him in or to write the MCA's death warrant by electing Kit Siang.It was a choice that former MCA president Lee San Choon presented Chinese voters in Seremban in the April 1982 general election when he moved from a safe seat in Johor to contest against then DAP chairman Dr Chen Man Hin in the latter's bailiwick.
In the run-up to that election, Kit Siang had taunted MCA leaders over their fear of taking on the DAP in the urban constituencies where Chinese voters comprise a heavy majority.
San Choon, a politician with an aversion for theatrics, quietly moved the voter registrations of his trade unions friends - he had legions of them as labour minister - to Seremban while all the while disdaining to respond to Kit Siang's taunt.
On nominations day in GE6, he filed to contest in Seremban and went on to obtain a wafer-thin 800-plus majority over the popular and likeable Chen.
The San Choon victory was the beginning of an MCA ascendancy over DAP that weakened the latter's claim to invincibility in Chinese-majority urban seats.
The MCA businessman-adviser in Johor tantalised Soi Lek with the possibility of a repeat of San Choon's feat.Soi Lek was interested and an MCA delegation went to Pekan on the March 23-24 weekend where the PM was campaigning in his backyard to seek his endorsement. Najib was supportive of the idea but an initially eager Soi Lek soon chickened out.
That left Ghani holding the bag and now he is fighting to see if he can be retained to contest his state seat of Serom, a lifeline he has to have to keep his MB post just in case he loses to Kit Siang for Parliament.
His post-GE13 case for an extension of tenure as MB is up in the air given his newly frosty relations with the palace. And Najib, not known for gumption when faced with the powerful, is not saying anything to Ghani about an extension of tenure.
Thus what began in jest for Ghani has morphed into a deadly game of survival in Johor Umno and national politics.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.
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