Will MCA’s face-game work?

It wants Chinese voters to look at the candidate's face and not at the party the person represents.

COMMENT

MCA has started a subtle strategy to woo Chinese voters via the Chinese papers. And the ploy is to advice the Chinese voters to look at the candidate’s face and not at the party he represents. Therefore if MCA puts a credible candidate who is a well-known corporate figure, the candidate might defeat the DAP candidate who is less well-known.

If this is the scenario, MCA can increase its seat count in Parliament from the present 15. By encouraging Chinese voters to look at the candidate instead of the party, MCA’s strategists hope that the Chinese will overlook the party’s less than credible name.

This is in direct contrast to Umno’s strategy of asking the Malay voters to look at the party instead of the candidate because the name of Umno is still marketable among the Malays whereas the name of MCA is not marketable anymore among the Chinese.

Displaying and highlighting the candidate’s credentials is MCA’s subtle strategy of deception to make Chinese voters forget the MCA name. The Chinese have to realise the fact that even if the MCA candidate is credible, he is still part of the corrupt BN system and in the end he will be forced to support the corrupt system as well.

Thus it is imperative for the Chinese to reject MCA no matter how credible, respected, wealthy or handsome the candidate is. Another strategy of MCA’s is to harp on Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) so-called lack of consensus for the choice of prime minister in the event Pakatan wins the forthcoming general election.

MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek is fond of saying that Pakatan is having difficulty deciding between Anwar Ibrahim of PKR and Hadi Awang of PAS. Knowing that the Chinese dislike uncertainty, the MCA president knows that Pakatan must be seen to be indecisive in regards to this issue as this will influence the Chinese to opt for BN who is under the clear-cut leadership of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

And some people may also forget that the BN leadership role is less clear because former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is still dishing out advice from the observer’s armchair.

Sometimes it looks like it is Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak who is running the show while at other times it looks like it is Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin who is the one calling the shots. But at the back of it all, it is Mahathir who is the one who is really in charge. Or maybe it is someone’s spouse who may have a hand in everything.

Lacking intellectual strategies

The leadership lines in BN are blurred whereas in Pakatan although there are disagreements, the main stand that is to be adopted and implemented are the policies of the Orange Book (Buku Jingga). And Opposition Leader Anwar has made that clear.

Harping on Pakatan’s so-called fickleness in choosing whether Anwar or Hadi is to be prime minister will be MCA’s campaign platform while at the same time exhorting voters to unite under the ‘clear leadership of PM Najib for stability and economic prosperity’.

This shows that the presentation of faces is MCA’s method to move the hearts and minds of the Chinese masses as they have run out of proper intellectual strategies. In actual fact, MCA is only creating illusions.

The battle lines for the 13th General Election are firmly drawn and it is Anwar versus Najib. Plain and simple. No confusion. This is what the Chinese relish – one to one fights as is common in the old Chinese martial arts movies.

In addition to that, the closed door showing of the film ‘Tanda Putera’ to 3,000 Felda settlers recently is a clear indication that although MCA is working hard to woo the Chinese voters, MCA is still Umno’s lackey as they are too afraid to protest against the movie which portrays the Chinese in bad light.

MCA is keeping silent because it is the image of the DAP Chinese that is tarnished, not the MCA Chinese. It is best for the Chinese to render MCA and Gerakan powerless as they only speak up when it is convenient for them and when their interests are at stake.

At other times, they are as silent as the graveyard. As it is, even with MCA and Gerakan in parliament, the Chinese do not have that much voice anyway as the big brother is still and always will be Umno if BN continues to stay in power.

All this means that Chinese voters must not fall for MCA’s presentation of faces-ploy. A vote for MCA is a vote for Umno’s dominance and also a vote for the continuation of cronyism and other crooked practices by BN.

Selena Tay is a DAP member and a FMT columnist.