The rumblings in the ranks are getting louder and all’s not well in MCA which has been caricatured by some party members as “sleepwalkers” and a “dead man walking”.
The disquiet in the political climate has much to do with the party’s leadership and its response to public outrage over 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and the RM2.6 billion in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal account, and the massive turnout at the Bersih 4 rally.
Kluang division head Gan Ping Sieu, a former deputy youth and sports minister and party vice-president, has been persistent in his criticism of the MCA leadership for its failure to speak up on the dire state of affairs in the country.
The views of another divisional chieftain, Tan Foong Luen, of Negri Sembilan, are also at odds with the party’s leadership. He has called for Najib’s ouster to regain public confidence and ensure BN’s survival in the next general election.
In the interest of self-preservation, all the party's MPs, including the three ministers, should thus heed former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s appeal to BN parliamentarians to support a no-confidence motion against Najib.
In another development, MCA’s publicity bureau deputy chairman and Tawau division chief, Marco Yap, went a step further and quit his post in disgust.
The party’s youth leader and Deputy Education Minister Chong Sin Woon was effectively given a slap in the face by his superiors for his support of university students and MCA members’ attendance at the Bersih rally.
The grassroots felt let down when the leadership did not close ranks to defend Chong following well-publicised attacks by various Umno leaders for seemingly siding with opposition forces.
To top it all off, former MCA president Ling Liong Sik showed up at the Bersih rally in Perth, much to the delight of the participants there.
The current top echelon is clearly aligned with Najib and party insiders say their wager is on the PM weathering the storm and completing his term of office. This will enable the party to stand in good stead with Umno and consequently secure a reasonable allocation of safe seats to contest in the next general election.
However, in times of national crisis the leaders can ill-afford to indulge in petty politics and should rise above their differences; the public good must take precedence over parochial or partisan interests.
Is the leadership indifferent to or misreading public sentiments, in particular in the Chinese community which they claim to represent?
Public perception has not been pretty and this has hardly improved since the party’s disastrous performance in GE13, and it still appears to be out of sync with community expectations.
Indeed, in cyberspace MCA is virtually a lightning rod that attracts endless odium – extremely undignified and some even unwarranted – whenever it gets mentioned in open forums.
The party’s traditional base in the community has shrunk considerably and the convention of MCA delivering the Chinese votes to BN has ceased to apply.
Another poor showing at the polls will surely spell doom for the party. The weaker MCA gets, the more beholden to Umno it becomes as the current party leadership has come to realise.
In the paradoxical relationship, Umno is the both the party’s lifesaver and wrecker. The BN supremo plays it sweet and sour with MCA.
Concessions by Umno could transform MCA into champions of the Chinese but it has to refrain from challenging the boss, even on issues detrimental to the community.
This damages the party’s standing in the community. For instance, the double standard over participation in public protests by the membership of BN component parties riles the community.
While MCA members were forbidden to join the Bersih rally, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has said he does not have a problem with Umno members attending the September 16 counter-rally although it does not have a police permit.
The red-shirt rally also has the support of Rural and Regional Development Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Sungai Besar Umno chief Datuk Jamal Md Yunos, to name a few.
This is a public display of MCA’s helplessness which draws contempt and derision, and is great political capital for opposition parties, especially DAP.
Its attempts to stay politically relevant and join the national conversation on critical issues have been frustrated time and again, yet Umno flays MCA for failing to deliver.
It’s a Catch-22 for the party and at this critical juncture it will have to reassess its relationship with Umno and BN. Drastic times call for drastic measures. – September 11, 2015.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
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