MCA - dare to say, dare to do?

Malaysiakini - MCA: We are loyal but won't blindly follow

... so said MCA President Chua Soi Lek. At the party’s 57th AGM he stated: "There will be occasions when MCA will take a different stand from Umno. MCA needs to be sensitive to the needs and aspirations of the rakyat, so that we continue to be their voice in the government."

"We have to overcome the negative perception of the Chinese towards MCA. We have been perceived as a party that has been unable to voice out the aspirations of the community."

Well, let’s see. As a start what do MCA MPs say about the Dewan Rakyat’s Speaker saying there’ll be no debate on the 'racist' principals as they’re already disciplined.

All of us including the Speaker himself and Chua know that’s not true.

Besides, the debate is more than just about the disciplining. It’s about the nature of official indoctrination of public servants by the Biro Tatanegara (BTN), which has already been reported by many participants as having a sinister racial content, and the DPM's staggeringly stupid statement that he couldn’t do anything about the slow pace of bringing the racist duo to heels, and of course the inordinate heels dragging to discipline the two publicly-paid bigots even until now, yes, up to the very instant when the House Speaker brazenly claimed they are being disciplined.

There there is the question of how PM Najib's various policy statements, namely 1Malaysia and zero tolerance towards racism, etc stand in the face of such defiant public servants.

I take this opportunity to also advise the MCA and indeed the Gerakan and MIC to bear in mind that the Barisan Nasional is a coalition and not UMNO with several non-Malay affiliates or branches. Therefore MCA (and Gerakan and MIC each) should stand up as a sovereign party that is a full partner in a coalition or alliance. Don't behave like a subordinate branch of UMNO.

What does this entail then?

While the BN as a party should of course, as far as possible speak out together on policy issues, the operative term should be ‘as far as possible’, meaning there may be times the MCA should be able, and indeed dare to speak out differently on an issue of interest to the community or constituency it represents.

When there is an general or state election pending, the seats should be allocated not just as per a coalition formula BUT through meaningful negotiations among the parties. In other words, there is no such thing as the BN chairperson (meaning UMNO) dispensing seats out like Father Christmas and MCA and Gerakan keeping mum.

Also and very importantly, the selection of candidates to seats assigned to MCA shall be only at the discretion of the MCA leadership and should never ever be subordinated to approval by the BN chairperson (eg. Hulu Selangor where the MIC president was humiliated as being no more than a mere UMNO branch leader).

It’s an insult that MCA candidates have to be approved by an UMNO man.

Finally (for now), where an agreement or consensus cannot be arrived at between, say, MCA and Gerakan, these two BN parties should be permitted to fight it out. For example, in Australia, the Liberal and National parties, both partners in the Coalition, are allowed to compete against each other in some seats.

An added advantage in this is to prevent UMNO from employing its old tactic of divide and rule over MCA and Gerakan. Fighting it out is better as it will weed out the Chinese based party least supported by the voters. Better still, the MCA and Gerakan should merge into one single party.

Let’s see how determined Chua and the MCA (and Gerakan) will be.