Kajang: MCA’s big test?

Who knows, perhaps with Liow contesting, a few Chinese may want to give him a chance to prove his mettle.

COMMENT

The Kajang by-election fixed for polling on March 23 looks to be the first major test for MCA’s new president, Liow Tiong Lai. Whether Liow is the candidate for Kajang still remains to be seen but it is only right he should contest because he is the most high profile person in MCA.

According to the Chinese political observers, Liow has to go for the jugular or else he will be deemed as cowardly.

Thus there is no choice for the Bentong MP. If MCA were to put any other candidate, it will only show MCA as throwing that said chosen candidate to be mauled at the ballot box and will definitely be mocked by the Chinese voters.

Although there is some talk that Umno may field a candidate in Kajang this time around, many Chinese is of the view that MCA will not give up the seat as it will be a slap in the face for MCA, free of charge at that.

MCA had already given up its Wangsa Maju and Gelang Patah seats to Umno in last year’s general election and to do so a third time will only confirm MCA as weak, powerless and unable to stand its ground in BN.

Who knows, perhaps with Liow contesting, a few Chinese may want to give him a chance to prove his mettle as he is the newly elected MCA leader.

None the less, it is highly likely that although Liow may garner some Chinese votes, PKR’s Anwar Ibrahim can win by a bigger majority than the previous PKR man if Pakatan Rakyat knows which issues to focus on during the election campaign.

And in this day and age, price hikes should be the one and only issue. There is no other issue besides this.

Already now a good number of urban citizens including those who had voted for BN in GE13 have woken up to the fact that cost of living have gone up tremendously since GE13 on May 5 last year.

Nothing new

A preliminary survey of the Kajang voters conducted by this columnist revealed that price hikes is currently the major problematic issue of the day that concerns the people.

Teresa Kok’s video and the Muslim NGOs’ antics are the least of their concerns. No one cares about such things when times are difficult, especially for the low-wage earners in urban cities and sub-urban towns.

Therefore race and religion issues will somehow be drowned by the price hikes issue.

And if Liow is the candidate, the Chinese voters will question him properly on why MCA has failed to stop the government from hiking up the price of RON95 petrol and the electricity tariff.

As of now, the Chinese regard MCA as Umno’s stooge and it does not bode well for MCA to continue as Umno’s yes-man.

If only MCA dare to speak out against Umno, then the Chinese vote will return to MCA.

As the polling date of March 23 is still a long way off, MCA still has time to step out of Umno’s shadow. But right now there is nothing new in MCA.

Truth be told, MCA has done a lot to help the Chinese and has been in a way successful in championing Chinese causes according to what they have claimed but it is their manner of being subservient to Umno that irks the Chinese voters.

No Chinese voter can understand why MCA has to be subservient to Umno. MCA is now like a second-ranked party in BN and that annoys the Chinese tremendously.

Doing worse than PAS

This is unlike DAP who is an equal partner in Pakatan Rakyat.

It is because that MCA is muzzled that makes the Chinese swing to Pakatan. It is also because Pakatan’s MPs speak up for everyone and PAS MPs are even more daring in speaking out for the Chinese than the MCA MPs.

Take for instance the Teresa Kok issue. Among those PAS bigwigs who had spoken up for her were Mohamad Sabu (Deputy President), Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man (Vice-President), Mahfuz Omar (Pokok Sena MP), Hanipa Maidin (Sepang MP) and Siti Mariah Mahmud (Kota Raja MP).

“No doubt the Chinese voters will be unhappy with the double-standard treatment shown in the Teresa Kok’s Chinese New Year video clip issue and this may work against BN at the ballot box,” opined PAS Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad.

Unless MCA summon up some guts, the Chinese will reject them again.

MCA has to take note that even PAS has now surpassed them in popularity among the Chinese.

Selena Tay is a DAP member and a FMT columnist.