I could remember the day I was in USM arguing with the Chinese Language Society office bearers that Chinese Malaysians need a multiracial party to protect their rights. They did not agree. I further stated that Chinese Malaysians could only claim their rights once the Malay Malaysians are split into two major parties. They, of course, thought that I was day-dreaming! UMNO had seriously broke twice, if we do not consider PAS as a split. Once with Kuli's 46 and now with Keadilan's Anwar Ibrahim!
Off the Edge (OTE) Oct 08 issue carried an interesting feature as per title of this posting. Four
MCA leaders were interviewed.Chua Jui Meng
My vote (not as the MCA Pres, but the performance of the four in the feature) goes to Chua Jui Meng. I was surprised that he gives credit to one President whom I disliked most, Ling Loing Sik! Ling set up Insap think tank with Prof Lim Teck Ghee as on of the members. To side track, I could not recall MCA defending Prof Lim openly when he was slaughtered by UMNO over calling bluff the government's statistics on the percentage of Malays equity ownership in support of the failure of NEP! Two interesting stupidities here: MCA failure to appreciate the brains who helped the party, and UMNO admitting its failure over NEP as the ruling party !
Back to Chua JM, he spoke in the Parliament for two hours before he was stopped abruptly by the Speaker over UMNO's declaration to extend NEP beyond 1990. Instead of been sacked by Dr M, the latter set up the National Economic Consultative Council (NECC) in which he was an active member. As a result, Dr M presented the National Development Policy to replace NEP, which saw the liberalisation in economy and education post 1991.
He blames the present outcome squarely on Ong Kah Ting, my inference. UMNO youth (Hishamkeris & KJ SIL), endorsed by UMNO (lame Pak Lah), post 2004 was vocal in reviving NEP instead of rewarding the Rakyat for supporting BN. MCA kept quiet; hench its downfall in 2008. It is also interesting that he talked about debating NEP with KJ in 2005 and telling him that the government statistics needed to be relooked. Khairy agreed with him for a review, but MCA never followed up on that.
Chua also talked about other illnesses such as corruptions in UMNO, negotiated tenders for government projects, ineffective ACA and the Societies Act which prevented governing political party members from having recourse of law against acts of injustice by their leaders, a case of party above the law of the nation!
Chua's conclusion: MCA must change! To the last question 'To pull out of Barisan?', Chua said, 'If it comes to the crunch and UMNO refuses to change, we cannot be pulled down by a party that refuses to change. Even an animal knows how to fight for its survival.'
Ong Tee Kiat
Though I personally think that Ong would be the best person to lead MCA now, I am disappointed with this interview. There is too much talk on the service centre the Michael Chong-style, though the OTE is of the opinion that complainants should be able to avail themselves to the services of the government itself.
Ong also mentioned briefly on his role in NECC, that MCA insisted that we must go for merits and needs, and not ethnicity. However, certain quarters (I am disappointed that he failed to name them) seem more keen to resurrect past practices of the NEP days in recent years.
On the question 'should the MCA pull out of BN', the first question of the interview, Ong replied, 'Opting out is one of the options but not the only option'.
I was hoping that Ong could have given a better overview on his refreshing view on MCA going multiracialism.
Chua Soi Lek & Fong Chan Onn
There are nothing to shout about for these two... more comments later may be.
Conclusion
MCA is at the mercy of UMNO unless one leader, preferably the President, needs to speak the language of the grassroots loud and clear, whether MCA remains in BN, be an independent or just join the Pakatan Rakyat.
