MCA must face reality and reinvent itself

Once a powerful voice in Malaysian politics, the party now a shadow of its former self, must be courageous in speaking up for the rakyat's interests instead of being an Umno-BN lackey.

COMMENT

Today is the watershed polls for MCA where its 2,000 plus delegates will be electing their president, deputy president, four vice-presidents and 25 central working committee members. The party is now at a crossroad and hoping to rejuvenate itself to recapture the hearts and minds of the Chinese community in time for the next general election after a disastrous outing in GE13 on May 5, 2013.

Be that as it may, the Chinese abandoning MCA is simply down to a very simple and obvious reason – the Chinese dislike MCA being subservient to Umno. No Chinese can comprehend why MCA should be subservient to Umno as BN leaders are always proclaiming BN as a power-sharing coalition. So why should Umno be lording it over MCA? MCA is now acting as if it is Umno’s lackey.

When MCA’s Wee Ka Siong (who was at that material time the Deputy Education Minister) raised the issue asking why Chinese topscorers failed to get a place in university, an Umno leader asked Wee to shut up and he promptly did so. This is just one example and this is unacceptable to the Chinese community, according to those interviewed by this columnist.

It is always the same old story. A MCA leader brings up an issue only to be asked to keep quiet and toe the line by an Umno leader and MCA leaders always meekly comply, thus showing that they have no voice in anything.

The only time MCA gets to speak up is when it attacks DAP or other opposition leaders. Other than that, its job is to parrot and praise the government’s policies sky-high and say ‘yes’ to all of Umno’s ideas, suggestions and proposals.

MCA leaders never dared to oppose Umno leaders. Two main issues where the voice of MCA leaders were conspicuously absent were the Jalan Sultan-MRT issue and the property valuation-assessment hike issue. Concerning these two issues, DAP leaders were at the forefront opposing the government’s policies whereas MCA kept mum.

In regard to the assessment, while DAP leaders were busy collecting objection letters from the public and criticising the property valuation hike as too substantial, too illogical and too burdensome for the rakyat, MCA leaders were as silent as the grave.

Leaders must be honest

Why are MCA leaders afraid of speaking out on behalf of the rakyat? Is their motive to serve the people or just to assist BN in portraying the coalition as a harmonious multi-racial coalition?

MCA used to be a powerful voice in Malaysian politics. It did its part in Chinese education and no doubt it has helped a lot of people. But that was in its heyday which lasted till the late 1990s. Since 2000, its voice seems to have quietened down.

Now it is just a shadow of its former self. It must rise again and the only way to do it is by speaking up and speaking out. In fact it is not difficult (or perhaps it is difficult, depending on how one sees it) for MCA to regain Chinese support because all that MCA leaders need to do is to act like the opposition and be more vocal in speaking up for the rakyat’s interests.

Therefore we need brave leaders in MCA. Honesty alone is not enough. Whoever wins at the polls is not really important as long as the winner is brave and honest. A leader may be honest but if he is just too afraid to speak up, then he is useless as he will only be keeping mum on government policies that cause hardship to the ordinary rakyat.

MCA leaders must thus pluck up courage to speak up and go against the establishment if the need arises and must speak for the rights of all communities. Take for instance their act of telling the late Teoh Beng Hock’s family to accept the open verdict. The Chinese community see that move by MCA as a betrayal towards the Teoh family and MCA lost a lot of Chinese support from that cowardly move.

This shows clearly that if MCA has apple-polishing leaders, then these leaders will continue to be rejected by the Chinese voters as it is a lowdown act making the Chinese lose dignity. Thus MCA must be bold enough to speak the truth without fear or favour if the party wants to regain the Chinese vote.

If not, then MCA’s acronym as many Chinese now opine can stand for ‘Make Chinese Angry’ or ‘Most Cowardly Association’. It is possible for MCA to recapture the Chinese vote but at the end of the day it depends on whether the MCA leaders are brave enough to do so.