Daggers ready to skin Chua

Will MCA honour its vow to reject all government posts?

COMMENT

All eyes in MCA are waiting to see what president Dr Chua Soi Lek will do following the party’s disastrous showing in the 13th general election.

Memories are not so short that people would forget the promise he made on behalf of MCA on April 28, 2011—that the party would not accept any government position if it were to perform worse than in the 2008 polls.

“MCA to decline all government posts,” the party’s organ, the Guardian, screamed in a headline in its May 2011 edition. The sub-heading was: “It takes a bold leader or a bold party to come up with a statement which may not be palatable to readers.”

The article declared: “Not only will MCA decline cabinet positions at the federal and state levels as ministers, deputy ministers or exco members, but also such positions as municipal councillors, new village chiefs and members of hospital advisory boards.”

MCA’s publicity department unequivocally stated that this was neither a publicity stunt nor an attempt to intimidate voters.

“The stand taken by MCA is in the spirit of democracy and to respect the decision of voters. If MCA is unable to muster backing from the Chinese community, whose interests our party represents and where support has traditionally be been drawn from, then MCA does not have the legitimacy to represent the Chinese at the policy making level in the administration,” said the Guardian.

Nevertheless, whether the pledge was made out of arrogance or overconfidence or as a threat is now an academic question. MCA members and the rest of the Malaysian public are interested only in knowing whether the party will honour it.

In last Sunday’s election, the party won only seven of the 37 parliament seats it contested and 11 of 90 state seats. These results are certainly worse than the party’s performance in GE12. But are they proof enough, in Dr Chua’s opinion, that MCA is “unable to muster backing from the Chinese community”?

Will MCA eat humble pie? Will it retract the “bold’ pledge, admit to pulling a bad publicity stunt and accept executive positions in government?

Daggers are out

Already the daggers are out and ready to skin Chua. Some divisional leaders are accusing him of favouritism in the choice of election candidates, plotting bad strategies and releasing inappropriate press statements.

But party veterans are saying that Chua should not be alone in taking the blame.

“Why are these leaders only putting the blame on Chua now, after the grave is dug?” one veteran remarked. “Why didn’t they speak out before the election?”

Still, observers expect to hear more voices calling for Chua’s resignation in the coming weeks. Some say many will insist on his immediate resignation, before the party elections, which may due within the next six months under a recent amendment to the party’s constitution.

Pundits are now saying that Chua’s political demise appeared inevitable long ago, when he began making senseless attacks against the opposition, speaking from a moral ground that he had no right to step on.

He was afflicted, they say, by a serious ailment that caused self-deception, arrogance, cockiness and a failure to admit his mistakes. One observer likened him to the tortoise mentioned in a Chinese proverb, “who can raise its head but still cannot see its back”.

Ironically, though, Chua has achieved something no other MCA leader has been able to. He has succeeded in uniting the Chinese community under the opposition.

Stanley Koh is a former head of MCA’s research unit. He is now a FMT columnist.