Gambling away MCA’s future

A factor contributing to MCA's downfall must surely be the central delegates' 'rewards' and money politics in influencing the voters hence, electing wrong candidates to helm the party.

COMMENT

In recent weeks, supporters of MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek and deputy president Liow Tiong Lai’s men seemed to be gambling with the future of MCA with their power play. The situation is anticipated to heat up with the possibility of an emergence of a third faction supporting former party president Ong Tee Keat.

However, with the wind out of the party’s sail, the MCA is slipping further into the quagmire as the party president and his deputy locked horns openly. Many viewed this as yet another power struggle written into the 64-year party history, which party leadership had been rife with crisis.

Political pundits in and outside the party circles were in agreement that the MCA would take years to recover and there was no certainty of a change of guards at the helm at any time now or in the near future would restore allegiances or regain loyalty from the public domain.

But for those who love the party, the leadership in the making – if it materalises – would be another bitter pill to swallow. To them, the battle between the party president Chua and his deputy Liow is a repeat of the previous coup, albeit with a slightly different set of people, which saw the ouster of the then president Ong Tee Keat.

Love can be many splendour a thing but in politics, emotions are not evident and feelings are not facts but exploited by politicians in a perverse move to achieve their self-vested aims and objectives. For those who have been following the open conflict within the party, it is very clear that there is no love lost between Chua and his deputy Liow.

The on-going rivalry is receiving little or scant attention from the Chinese community. Privately, many felt that a spectacular failure or a raging success of either faction is unlikely to make any significant or meaningful difference to the local political landscape.

The Chinese community has largely abandoned the party, saved by an inner core of its shrinking membership base and die-hard rank-and-file hoping for better days to come while disillusioned supporters are quietly calling it a day.

The party’s electoral performance in 2013 under Chua’s leadership, which garnered a miserable 11 percent support from the Chinese electorate, is not only a death-knell sign of more possible worse results at the next general elections but generally interpreted as a rejection of his leadership by the Chinese community.

To opposing factions within the party and the political divide, Chua is worthy of an award for his astounding success in leading the second largest BN component party into the sunset. Others blamed Chua for playing a major contributory role including his personality traits for his party’s losses, which resulted in the ruling coalition failing to achieve a two-third majority.

Despite this stark reality of truth, Chua’s brand of practical politics are ignoring facts while blindly and generously rewarding his staunch supporters to conceal the real weaknesses in the party.

Leadership crisis

Major challenges shrouding the party included Chua’s inability to regain credibility and integrity and he should stop passing the buck and take responsibility for the party’s regression.

Collective accountability should no longer be an excuse for him to avoid responsibility and he should step down like his predecessor Ong Ka Ting did following the party’s bad defeat at the 2008 general election.

In the light of that, party veterans has recently urged Chua to immediately resign to take responsibility for the party’s dismay 7-11 electoral results.

Chua has acknowledged that the party president is a powerful executive when he said in a 2008 interview that: “No, I am an ordinary member, he (Ong Ka Ting) is a powerful executive … he has lots of power. Power to appoint (party) posts and prerogative powers in awarding titles (i.e. datukship)”, in response to a question if he was barred from taking on a leadership role following his sex scandal exposé.

Through his admission and acknowledging his current role as party president, he should take full responsibilities for his leadership failures.

Instead, Chua has criticised those calling for his exit as “hungry for power” and painted his deputy as trying to usurp his presidential powers.

This is another accusation by Chua which some party members find impossible to believe. A Cheras rank-and-file leader remarked, “Chua became president after principally involved in a two-year protracted squabbling with (Ong) Tee Keat and dividing the party while in his capacity as deputy president. Now, he is accusing Liow of doing the same.”

“The party president’s accusation of Liow doing the same to him is therefore, a joke,” a pro-Liow supporter claimed.

Another major factor contributing to the party’s downfall must surely be the central delegates’ “rewards” and money politics in influencing the voters hence, electing wrong candidates to helm the party.

Many within the party who once had high regards for Chua are facing a rude awakening of the party president’s acute lack of leadership qualities and political wisdom.

“I am not exercising this power because I love the party more than I love Liow. Why is he so keen on triggering a crisis? Liow loves the president’s position more than he loves the party,” Chua reportedly said publicly to justify his rejection of an Emergency General Meeting (EGM) call by Liow’s faction.

“If he (Liow) loves the party, he should not request for an EGM during the transition period which could trigger a crisis,” he added.

A source close to Liow responded and questioned Chua’s concern for the party: “And talking about crisis, if memories are still fresh, was it not Chua’s eagerness in making a political comeback that caused a leadership crisis between him and Ong Tee Keat?”

Poor political judgment

Chua’s rhetoric of his love for the party have inevitably brought guffaws, sinister smiles and puzzlement, if not a rude awakening, since many have questioned how he is able to love his party as he is the cause of the current discord in the party.

Critics have been harshly criticising Chua over his confession of his sex scandal, with a party veteran who has been at the party helm since Dr Ling Leong Sik’s tenure sneering at Chua’s rhetoric by asking if “bringing ill repute to the party and tarnishing the image of the founding fathers is an act of love for the party?”

More and more members have realised that Chua are failing to deliver as he has, until today since taking the president’s post, not brought about any positive transformation and is instead, undermining the leadership values which was once held dearly by the party founders.

To make matters worse, Chua foolhardiness and impulsiveness in spearheading a “no government post” policy and eventually wriggling out of it by introducing exceptional rules and endorsing a double-standard for the benefit of his cronies have ultimately divided the party.

Ironically, Chua’s love for the party is also saturated with perverted logic and U-turns.

Responding to a question in an interview in August 2008 on Malaysian public being no longer concerned with the MCA elections as it is still playing second fiddle to big brother Umno, Chua responded by saying: “Yes, that’s why MCA must be more assertive and play its role as a party in government.”

Today, Chua has contradicted his promises made in the past with many viewing Chua’s policy as fatally flawed.

His so-called love for the party included giving away three parliamentary seats and spreading a lie to Umno bloggers that his party comrade Ong Tee Keat would likely defect to the opposition.

As such, MCA’s representation in the government is waning fast.

A political analyst who declined to be named has said, “If Chua truly loves the party, he should strengthen the party’s representation and not vacate it, leaving a vacuum. The proportion of MCA’s representation in the government has dropped from 29 percent in 1962 to 23 per cent in 1996.

“Besides, the decline of its importance in Cabinet before the 2013 general election was glaring as MCA had lost the finance portfolio it once held since 1957 and also that in the Trade and Industry Ministry. The party has lost both the portfolios in 1974 and they have since remained elusive to MCA.

“On this count, Chua has shown himself to be an undeserving leader with poor political judgment and bankrupt of political wisdom,” the analyst added.

The current scenario is best illustrated with the saying, “A fish rots from the head down” – a stark reminder of Dr Ling’s tenure, as it is now headed by a flawed leader which could very well lead to the party’s quick demise.

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