A tale on one party with two presidents and no leader

MIC is becoming a comedy of errors much more complex than any Shakespearean drama.

COMMENT

By Bhavani Krishna Iyer

MIC is a tale of two leaders but with neither leading the community as it appears the party is beleaguered and there isn’t a ray of hope that things will get better.

MIC’s leadership has been on a swing since the party elections in 2013. We have seen spats between two factions headed by “President” G Palanivel and his deputy S Subramaniam respectively.

After a long drawn battle of ugly and unremorseful clashes between the rival groups, Palanivel applied for judicial review against the Registrar of Societies (RoS) for its directive to MIC to hold fresh elections. The application was dismissed two days ago and since then there has been loads of news and rumours circulating in public.

Of course, interest from Malaysian Indians at large has dropped to almost zero with just the MIC stalwarts prominent on to the scene, for self-gratification.

Barisan Nasional (BN) secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor had said Umno will not interfere in the growing spat within MIC dismissing it as an “internal matter”. This is understandable with BN having its plate already overflowing.

MIC looks like a tragic comedy to me or should I say it is infused with a comedy of errors much more complex than that of a Shakespearean drama. Earlier this year we had the president sacking several Central Working Committee (CWC) members and appointing a new secretary-general.

After losing his legal battle with RoS, he suspends 15 MIC office-bearers for convening the CWC meeting. As an immediate retort the Interim CWC committee has in turn sacked the president for initiating the judicial review against the RoS.

The faction has claimed that Palanivel was no longer the MIC president while Palanivel has issued a statement declaring that he is indeed the president. Do we now have two presidents or none at all?

With the two factions enthusiastically sacking each other and with no clear sight of intervention or mediation from BN or any other power that may be, MIC is moving into obscurity and is at threat of extinction, with no chance for revival.

Bhavani Krishna Iyer is an FMT reader.