YES, MCA CAN STILL BE GOOD – BUT IT NEEDS GOOD LEADERS – AND SAD TO SAY WITH KA SIONG, THE BOTTOM IS STILL NOWHERE IN SIGHT: TIME FOR MCA TO STOP BLAMING UMNO – NO ONE CAN FORCE ‘A COW TO DRINK WATER’

Why MCA? Because it can still do good, despite its loss of standing and influence which was largely due to its unfortunate association with the toxic Umno.

“MCA (is) in a state of confusion and decline.” So wrote Dr Heng Pek Koon, the director of the Asean Studies Centre in American University, Washington, DC.

To many, she is stating the obvious. But what may surprise them is that Dr Heng wrote this in 1987 for a book that was an updated version of her 1984 doctoral dissertation.The book is titled Chinese Politics in Malaysia, published by Oxford University Press. I was given a copy by my editor to review it as I was covering the MCA beat back then.

I wasn’t too happy with the assignment as the book looked very academic and dull. As it turned out, it was a fascinating and informative read about a political party’s impressive history and role in the founding of the modern Malaysian state.

My review was published in The Star on Oct 30, 1988. The headline was A party at crossroads, which seemed exactly to be where MCA is today.

Three decades on, Dr Heng’s findings are uncannily fresh and relevant. In her epilogue, which she titled From Indigenisation to Marginalisation, she saw a party that was already emasculated; a once powerful force that indigenised Chinese politics in pre-independence Malaya had become a marginalised bit player.

And I concluded my review with this: “Harsh as it may sound, current events do at least bear out the fact that the MCA and its leaders are deeply aware that the party is at a crossroads. Whether it and other non-Malay parties will continue to become ‘marginal political actors’ – in Dr Heng’s words – or otherwise remains to be seen.”

Well, we have seen what happened to those non-Malay parties. The reality is MCA never recovered its pre-1969 eminent position and influence and it reached a new low in the 1986 general election, when it retained only 17 parliamentary seats, seven seats fewer than it had won in the 1982 GE.

Dr Heng’s research at that time identified the cause of its decline to the fact that MCA no longer enjoyed a cosy relationship built on trust and common goals with Umno and was unable to take the hard line against government moves that were unpopular or deemed detrimental to the Chinese community.

MCA’s value to Umno had diminished because the latter had also changed. As Dr Heng put it, Umno was no longer just “a party of civil servants, schoolteachers, farmers and smallholders”. It had managed to build its own “capitalist clientele” and had not needed MCA’s financial assistance since the 1970s.

Still, during the early 1990s, when the economy was booming, a strong and confident Umno allowed a more conducive climate for racial tolerance and ethnic liberalisation. MCA saw a revival of its fortunes and did remarkably well in the 1995 GE, when it won the majority of the Chinese vote, and maintained its standing in the two subsequent GEs.

But when Umno found its own Malay support eroding, it reversed that policy of greater tolerance and played up the race and religion card again, to the detriment of the nation’s race relations.

And that has been going for a good decade now, ever since Barisan Nasional lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament in 2008. In trying to regain its own strength, Umno weakened its coalition partners.

Afraid to be seen to be “giving in” to non-Malay demands, Umno pushed hard on the Malay rights and supremacy strategy. And it might have worked if not for the shocking avarice and extreme corruption of many of its leaders that led to their fall from power.

Umno’s damage done on its partners has been so severe they were decimated in GE14. MCA won only one parliamentary seat and two state seats, MIC two federal and three state seats and Gerakan none.

Gerakan knew why it lost and quickly made the decision to quit Barisan. MCA was more circumspect and cautious in throwing in the towel. After all, it had a much longer and deeper history with Umno.

Even though MCA was no longer the financier of the coalition, as long as it could deliver the Chinese vote, it was still valuable to Umno. When it failed the very first time in 1969, Umno already warned it might stop co-operating with it.

In more recent times, several Umno leaders have often and openly belittled MCA as a party that had so little support from the community it claimed to represent that it needed Malay votes to win federal and state seats.

Despite the humiliation, MCA showed itself to be faithful partner. All this time, when the going got tough, it hung in there. But like a long marriage in which the partners have become estranged, there is no point in carrying on.

Indeed, MCA wants the union to end by dissolving Barisan and party president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong has declared an “MCA 2.0” that will forge a new path for itself.

Dr Wee described the party’s 70-year-old journey in nation building as a “fond memory”, which is a pity because it deserves more than that.

As Dr Heng states, “During its period of greatest achievement, the MCA proved that not only could it contribute significantly to the defeat of the Communist insurgency and build an effective political party with mass support, but it was able to meet the challenge of satisfying British concerns while fashioning a historic compromise with its Malay partners.”

Another point worth remembering is while MCA started off as and is still a race-based party, it has always ensured its policies and programmes were racially inclusive. Just look at its well-run educational institutions and the 1MCA Medical Foundation, which are not limited to just the Chinese community. That is a much better record than Umno’s.

Sadly, all that is in the past and unfortunately impresses no one. Umno has chosen PAS as its new partner and its secretary-general Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz sounded the death knell for the multicultural spirit that BN was founded upon.

Since no other Umno leader has corrected Nazri, we can safely assume he has spoken for his party.

Couple that with PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s opinion of the non-Malays as ungrateful and “insatiable and demanding more”, the country’s political future looks bleak because Umno and PAS are still immensely powerful and will play the racially divisive political game.

As the GE14 results showed, just enough Malay votes swung to Pakatan Harapan for it to defeat BN because these voters were sickened by the massive corruption and wanted to get rid of Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. That was all. The majority of Malays don’t want a New Malaysia, which is a non-Malay dream.

Yet, Umno wants to keep Barisan. So too MIC, strangely enough. Instead, a technical committee has been set up to look into the issues raised.

Goodness, whatever for? Can they resolve anything when the very basic premise for these political parties joining forces is in shreds? Or is Umno trying to have it both ways?

MCA has certainly demonstrated patience and fortitude but what will it do if Umno and MIC refuse to dissolve BN? Will it finally quit like Gerakan?

It has already marked out its new role, which is similar to that of Gerakan’s and that is to be an effective opposition providing checks and balances. But what I hope MCA will also do is to help counter the Umno-PAS unhealthy brand of politics.

That it can surely do very well on its own and show it is no longer in a state of confusion. And if it is in decline and has hit rock bottom, the only way is to go up. MCA, jia you!

THE STAR