MCA’s image gets a stab from within

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MCA’s image gets a stab from within


2 hours ago
Yeoh Guan Jin


Ti Lian Ker has taken the BN component party’s reputation down several notches by publicly appealing for seats with more Malay than Chinese voters

MCA’s former vice-president Ti Lian Ker publicly conceded that the party that claims it fights for the Chinese needs Malay votes to win.

In a podcast hosted by journalist Amin Iskandar, Ti asked that his party not be sidelined in favour of the DAP in the next general election.


He meant seat allocation, and now that the DAP is a partner in the unity government with Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional, there has to be some give-and-take, and he knows that DAP is more likely to take and MCA to give.

Whatever the reason, Ti’s lament was pathetic, to say the least.


The MCA was once a respected party. In its day, it had done some good things, with its educational initiative counting as one of its greater achievements.

Education is a significant component of the Chinese culture. It is seen as a path to social mobility.

Shortly after independence, when places in institutions of higher learning were insufficient to meet everyone’s needs, the MCA proposed the setting up of a new college for all races. This led to the formation of the Kolej Tunku Abdul Rahman which eventually became Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR).

With the inception of the New Economic Policy in 1971, a quota system in favour of bumiputeras was introduced for placements in public universities.


Many non-bumiputera students, even the deserving ones, would have been left out in the cold if not for UTAR.

This cemented the importance of MCA’s education initiative, not just for the non-bumiputeras but for all Malaysians. More than 200,000 students have already benefited from this effort.

The party also played a role in the fight for independence. The delegation that negotiated for Malaya’s independence from British rule comprised Tunku Abdul Rahman of Umno, MIC’s VT Sambanthan and MCA’s Tan Cheng Lock.

In the Tunku’s first cabinet, HS Lee was made finance minister, giving MCA one of the key ministries in the government. That marked the peak of MCA’s achievements, ones that the DAP can never lay claim to.

But a lot has changed.

A series of scandals, such as the mismanagement of deposit-taking cooperatives during the tenure of Tan Koon Swan as party president to the inability of subsequent leaders to meet the expectations of the people they claim to represent peeled away the support of its main constituents.

And who can forget the phantom voters who haunted the party in 1984.

Chinese support for the MCA began to peel off, to DAP’s benefit, forcing it to count more on Malay votes to win in elections.

The MCA’s loss of the little Chinese support it had is probably due more to its slide into ineptness than the ability, if any, of the DAP to effect change for the better.

But Ti needn’t have taken his party’s quandary into the public sphere. Quiet negotiations in the back room would have been more effective.

Now his party has just lost the respect of friends and foes.