Why Ong Tee Keat is worth supporting and saving!

Today Malaysiakini headlined its vox populi column as 'Umno has legitimised corruption' in referring to Isa Samad’s landslide win in the Bagan Pinang by-election.

"I don't give a f*"

but sadly, he was f*-ed

I like to borrow the title of that article to describe the PM’s call (or if you want to be polite, ‘hint’) to Ong Tee Keat to resign as MCA President.

Ong Tee Keat (note I’m using his full name because another ‘Ong’, no relation, will also be mentioned in this post) has been the person who brought the PKFZ scam right out into the open, and embarrassed one of his MCA colleagues Chan Kong Choy, the former Transport Minister, and several BN business and UMNO cronies, all of whom have been implicated in the PKFZ scandal.

The Malaysian Insider has today revealed in its article Supporters of Ka Ting, Kong Choy behind third force swing votes (yawnnnnnnnn), which is something most Chinese Malaysians already know or at least suspect as the manipulative force behind the recent MCA idiotic lose-lose EGM outcome.

My blogging matey, erudite Hsu Dar Ren wrote (also in The Malaysian Insider) A master move where he stated: When two factions are almost equally matched, as all indications showed; a strategically planned and galvanised small third force can do wonders, and that was what happened.

Most of us thought that given the equally matched opposing factions, no one would be able to galvanise a third force to throw the two respective leaders of the warring factions out.

But this was what actually happened. Someone behind the scene galvanised a small force of 30-50 delegates. By voting as a bloc, and voting one way for the first resolution, another way for the second resolution and yet another for the third resolution, this small group of 30 to 50 members succeeded in bringing down two big elephants.

Whoever is behind this is a (are) master strategist(s).

This is the result best suited to the Big Brother. Is the Big Brother behind this/these master strategist/s? We will probably never know.

However, Hsu gave a more altruistic reason for the master strategist(s), namely, to save the party from splitting, whilst most of us believe it was pure payback for Ong Tee Keat for daring to rock the BN gravy boat ...

... and god forbid, maybe going on to capsize even more gravy boats and derail gravy trains?

Even before the PKFZ exposure, Ong Tee Keat had already startled UMNO with his in-your-face revelation about corruption in the Education Ministry when he was then deputy minister for higher education.

Though Ong Tee Keat was proven correct in that exposure of corruption, as I posted in Corruption 'Fact' for DPM Najib & Hishamuddin, then-DPM Najib shamelessly spun that the cabinet’s reprimand of Ong Tee Keat for exposing officials' misuse of funds meant for Chinese schools' refurbishment was a matter of ‘principle’, and that the ‘facts’ of Ong’s allegation was entirely a different matter.

Huh? Facts of corruption to Najib was a different matter? Shouldn't that be the f* core issue?

The cabinet reprimand came about after Najib’s cousin, Hishamuddin, then-Education Minister had railed against Ong’s exposure.

"Mana ada corruption; it's only minor irregularity"

Hishamuddin had initially rejected Ong’s claim. But typically Ong Tee Keat didn't budge but after the reprimand … wakakaka … good olde Samy Vellu confirmed the 'facts' of Ong’s revelation – see Najib riled with Ong Tee Keat's last laugh!

So I am not entirely surprised by recent events, where we now witness a confluence of Najib’s too hasty pressure for Ong Tee Keat to leave his presidential post a.s.a.p and The Malaysian Insider’s news article Supporters of Ka Ting, Kong Choy behind third force swing votes.

Note in 2 paragraphs above I stated “But typically Ong Tee Keat didn't budge …”

Ong Tee Keat was recently described in a Malaysiakini article by columnist Neil Khor, my fellow Penangite and an erudite writer. Khor aptly titled his article ‘Fatal Purity’, no doubt borrowed from the title of a book by Ruth Scurr who wrote of Maximilien Robespierre.

A quick synopsis of the book in The Observer said: 'Fatal purity' refers to his [Robespierre] reputation for probity in politics and domestic affairs. His nickname in Paris, deserved by all accounts, was 'the Incorruptible'. He sought power for no reason other than to liberate the people of France from tyranny. He was obsessed with the idea of virtue, in politics and in private, although somehow that didn't stop him sending hundreds of people to their deaths.

And that is what probably has been giving the sh*ts to Najib and UMNO. I’ve just read a Malaysiakini letter which stated [extracts]:

Support for Ong Tee Keat, with his agenda of a clean and accountable government would force the same onto MCA, and therefore onto the entire Malaysian political landscape.

I see this as a turning point for Malaysia and as a foreign businessperson this is good news - it's good for business! […]

So the outcome of the MCA EGM, far from being just an internal leadership tussle, I think will have a major impact on all of Malaysia.

So, at least for now, Ong Tee Keat has an important symbolic role to play which helps the current Umno and BN leadership to continue with a progressive political mandate.

Alas, it was not too be. But it could have force UMNO to stand in line with a purity fanatic like Ong Tee Keat.

And Tengku Razaleigh, much as he criticised Ong Tee Keat in A taste of what’s to come had admitted (extracts):

A further question is what becomes of BN and Umno without a viable MCA. Without Chinese support, Umno would be like PAS in the days when it seemed like a local party of Kelantan: an exclusively Malay party, strong in some localities but irrelevant nationally.

There is a view that Umno, and by extension, the Malays, can somehow go it alone. Some calculate that Umno can cling to power by winning back the Malay masses through playing on divisive racial and religious issues. This is a mis-reading of the country at large and it underestimates the good sense and moderation of the majority of the Malays.

Meanwhile, there are signs that PAS, with the assistance of its partners, is taking up the middle ground vacated by Umno. In cooperation with its partners, PAS is now a force to reckon with in the plural centre of the country.

... which is why, much as we may despise the MCA, we should support a man like Ong Tee Keat for the greater good of the nation. If we allow him to go, we would, like UMNO, be legitimizing corruption.