Breathing new life into MCA

The first administrative task is to have a comprehensive and up-to-date members register of all its branches

COMMENT

By Daphne Loke

Malaysia’s cabinet line-up after the GE13 had left several positions vacant, presumably kept in view for MCA. Since then, not a day has passed without the Chinese press reporting on this issue. Looking at it from the publicity angle, the party was getting plenty of exposure.

On the flip side, the party had invited upon itself intense analysis, perhaps, never before received. Non-participation in executive positions in the government was voluntary, the party leadership conveyed this wish to the Prime Minister.

Like many management issues in an organisation, there is no reversal to this action. If a pilot steps aside to take on another task, the plane would not be holed up in a hanger waiting for his return. Alternatively, when the pilot is ready to fly, the management is under no obligation to take him back.

To the Prime Minister, the business of a nation needs to go on.

The constructive approach to this fiasco attracts two views. First, had this new development brought down the performance of the government machinery? If it is not broken, why fix it? Second, if these vacancies are to be filled by MCA, who should the candidates be?

Let’s examine the second view, viz. the selection criteria of candidates and why MCA. This is a necessary step as the opposition parties have provided opportunities for comparison.

We need to look at the person’s qualifications for each position, ranging from ministers, deputy ministers, state executive councillors, town councillors, to village headmen, not forgetting chief executives of government linked corporations.

Did MCA candidates perform satisfactorily in their previous appointments? The 10% of Chinese votes accredited to BN in GE13 could mean the Chinese were unhappy with these appointees.

The tradition of having the party president recommend candidates to the PM implies the existence of the perimeter system, i.e. the closer a person is to the president, the higher likelihood of being selected.

In a party of a million members, such a practice is bound to attract discontent. What more when the appointed candidates underperformed causing more than mere rippling repercussions.

Such was the resentment of academicians where the chairman of the university council was a self-admitted immoral person. What aggravated the situation was that the party was aware of such a situation, but no attempt was made to correct it.

Churchill benchmarks

What personal qualities should be sought from these candidates? The late Winston Churchill, twice the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was a member of the British Parliament for 40 years.

This great statesman of the 20th century was well known for his integrity, strategic foresight, capability to inspire people and a non-defeatist attitude.

Other commonwealth countries include features such as attentiveness to people and community, and analytical skills. But integrity always topped the list. It should begin from inside a political party

Each membership application required the applicant’s declaration attested before the division chief as testimony of voluntarily joining a political party, not just any other society.

This was punctuated by confessions of “artificially manufactured” phantom members by the thousands in addition to those who were unaware of the joining, or joining the party under undue influence.

Lifting the veil of non-compliance of statutory declarations in the RCI on the influx of illegal immigrants into Sabah should cast long shadows on MCA’s membership system.

Snowballing this number of non-committed members diluted the political intensity of the party.

For the last 10 years, this author had unconsciously misrepresented herself to be from Selangor when in fact her membership had never been transferred out of Kuala Lumpur.

Such lackadaisical control of member mobility enabled the establishment of territorial realms outside its original branch and had caused the branches to be hollow.

Abandoned children

The recent events where member were suspended, branches frozen, declared illegal or non-existent, and then laid the blame on the Registrar of Societies, had ruffled the feathers of many members.

The Societies Act has a role to play in approving the formation of branches. Section 12 (2) (b) was to ensure the branch to be established was subordinate and “adequately under the control of the society”.

In other words, once the Registrar of Societies had approved the establishment of a branch, ensuring its continuity and sustainability is the responsibility of the party headquarters.

In essence, the MCA HQ must take full responsibility for all the 4,300 branches it had submitted to ROS for their formation. There are examples galore of the HQ’s record of maladministration and mismanagement.

In a government funded project headed by an MCA member who also held very senior position in a ministry, and where this author was involved, expenditure claims were not settled for over a year.

Staff salaries were not paid for more than six months when the law provides for payment of wages not later than the seventh day the following month of work.

When expertise left the project, new talent was not recruited to complete the project. Funds not expended were transferred elsewhere when they should be returned to the government.

Watershed moment

MCA has thus arrived at a watershed where the members and branches were left in an quandary like abandoned children yet punished by the rules designed by the same parents.

Can members who honestly want to join this political party depend on the party headquarters to take them to their destination?

Can branches, the most important infrastructure of this political organisation, depend on the headquarters for their survival?

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, what did the animals do when the farmer mismanaged the farm? They had been complaining for a long time but were ignored, and conditions worsened.

Unlike the political party, these animals did not have central delegates to call on for emergency meetings. They decided for themselves on what to do to continue their survival on Manor Farm.

The animals had to assess the problems faced by each grouping, dispel false promises of their masters, analyse the situation and then devise strategies to ensure the group’s and everyone’s survival.

Taking a page from these animals, the first administrative task for party branches would be to have a current and up-to-date members register in every branch.

Branch chiefs must validate members’ list, either through re-registration or by asking existing members to re-attest their commitment to the party. This would ensure the branch’s validity in the eyes of ROS.

The availability of branches which are administratively organised is the first step towards resurrection.

Developing branches with this essential qualification may eventually lead towards resurrection and renewal and, albeit through changes in organisational structures, processes and strategies.

This will eventually empower branches to collectively perpetuate the original mission of the party and as well as aspire to deliver what their members had looked upon them to do so.

Churchill was often referred to as the lion who roared when the British Empire needed him most.

He could do so because the nation and the people around him had the lion heart. May recurrence of this epic in Malaysia breath new life into MCA – from ground up.

Daphne Loke , a life member of MCA, was also the former director of Graduate School of Business, SEGi University.