MCA’s strategy backfired!

It was a case of the Chinese community adopting a stance that Chua Soi Lek deserves to be taught a lesson.

COMMENT

MCA president, Dr Chua Soi Lek had once threatened the Chinese by saying that if MCA’s performance in the 13th general election is worst than in 2008, the Chinese would have no representation in the Cabinet.

This is a nonsensical threat.

Although the rural Chinese did vote for MCA, the urban Chinese did not as the latter considered Chua’s threat an affront to them. The Chinese mainly do not like to be threatened and far from being afraid, the Chinese adopts the stance that Chua deserves to be taught a lesson.

Therefore the Chinese decided to oust MCA from the Cabinet line-up by voting for the opposition.

The Chinese stance is this: ‘If we don’t vote for you, you will be out of the Cabinet and so out you go if that is what you want.’

Chua’s gamble or psy-war failed to woo the Chinese into voting for BN and thus MCA ended up with only seven seats in the 13th general election compared to 15 seats in 2008.

It was Chua’s challenge that had goaded the Chinese into voting for the opposition. If Chua had taken a humble approach after 2008, MCA would have garnered many more votes. It was Chua’s arrogant approach that did him in.

Another factor that made the Chinese angry with MCA was the apple-polishing manner of the MCA leaders towards big brother Umno.

MCA leaders never dared to speak up against Umno so the Chinese regard MCA leaders as cowardly. Therefore what is the use of having MCA in the Cabinet?!

By being Umno’s yes-men, the MCA leaders gave a great incentive to the Chinese to reject them.

On the whole, MCA’s downfall is caused by their own doing because they failed to read the Chinese psyche. Instead, the MCA leaders kept telling their Umno masters that the Chinese have returned to the BN fold.

Maybe the MCA leaders were afraid of being chastised by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak or Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin for failing to woo the Chinese voters and that is the reason why they gave a false report.

They hid their failure by giving Umno leaders a wrong prognosis as they were afraid that they would not be chosen to contest in the 13th general election and so they threw up a smokescreen to deceive PM Najib.

Therefore PM Najib should now scold the MCA leaders for deceiving him with a rosy report and giving him a false hope.

Make life easier for rakyat

DAP did not dupe the Chinese into thinking that Chinese votes alone can change the federal government.

DAP and the Chinese are not stupid. In particular, the urban Chinese knew that to change the government, all races must vote for change.

The urban Chinese had hoped that while they do their part to vote for change, all the other races would also vote for change. But it was not to be.

However in Selangor, not only the Chinese but also the Malays and the Indians had voted for change too. Otherwise, Selangor would have fallen to BN.

Whatever has been said and done, it is now time for the BN federal government to move forward to foster racial harmony and unity. Dwelling on the polls results by scrutinising who voted for BN or who voted for Pakatan Rakyat is an unhealthy trend.

Everyone from both sides of the political divide has to work together to take this nation forward. If not, our neighbours will leave us far behind in terms of economic prosperity.

PM Najib has said that he wants to work towards national reconciliation and for the betterment of the lives of the rakyat. Well and good. Everyone will be watching his move now.

At this point in time and for the next few years at least, there should not be any implementation of the GST (Goods & Services Tax) as the income of the low-wage earner can ill-afford this burdensome tax.

As Anwar Ibrahim had promised that the price of petrol will be reduced if Pakatan forms the federal government, then the BN federal government on its part should not increase the price of petrol this year in order to be people-friendly. Better still if the petrol price is reduced.

One of the main reasons why many urban voters and not just the Chinese voted for Pakatan was because of Anwar’s promise to reduce the petrol price. This is indeed a great incentive because once the petrol price is reduced, prices of other goods will stabilise at the current level instead of going up quickly.

If the BN federal government had listed the reduction of petrol price in its manifesto, more urban voters would have voted for BN.

At the end of the day, the informed voters, not only the Chinese but all the races had voted for those who could implement fair and best governing practices.

Selena Tay is a DAP member and a FMT columnist.