MCA - Agenda for Change (Part 2)

A PIECE OF MY MIND will dedicate the month long period to MCA's crisis and lay the foundations for thoughts when the time to decide comes.

This will be Part Two - Unity & Forgiveness

This is my second article against the Save MCA Movement. I do not question the underlying principles which is to strengthen and revive MCA.

However, the Save MCA Campaign is lacking in many aspects that make people like me being suspicious of the Movement.

The first time the Save MCA Campaign attempted to "save" MCA, Tan Sri Ong Ka Ting was made to bear the blame and he subsequently "retired" along with many party stalwarts in the top leadership.

In fact some Old Guards even blamed MCA for putting young faces to contest in the March 2008 election, instead of familiar old faces.

I shall talk about that another day. Today, Theng Bok calls for MCA to be saved again.

“Tee Keat is causing disunity in the party, please come forward to save MCA,” said Theng.

To me, it is as though within MCA there is another "MCA" with its own leadership, panel and members.

I can see that many in the Save MCA Movement are Division party elders and I wish not to offend anyone who are of a higher seniority than me in age out of respect.

However, I see conflicting remarks that can only make the Save MCA Movement look like child's play.

Tee Keat’s past history as MCA youth chief was also dredged up.

“He caused the 803 crisis,” said Theng, referring to a chair throwing fiasco at the Flamingo Hotel in August 2001 that embarrassed the party. (Malaysiakini)

"He caused the chair-throwing incident which led to a party crisis. I think in the next party crisis, he will cause the party to collapse. It cannot be denied that the president is only good at destroying the party." (NST)

If the votes for Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek as Deputy President with a count of 1115 votes can be interpreted as forgiveness by MCA delegates for his sex scandal and the votes are taken as a support for him to fortify the party, then what about the 1429 votes for Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat ?

Clearly, the votes can also be interpreted as a "forgiveness" for the fracas of the MCA Youth meeting in 2001 (if Theng Bok is so adamant to blame Tee Keat for it), and the votes are to be taken as a voice of full support to Tee Keat to revive and reform the Party under his leadership.

In the race for the Deputy Presidency, remember that 1001 votes went to Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan - 1001 votes against CSL.

My point here is clear. These are all merely interpretations, choice of words and language which we can play around with.

If Tee Keat wants to play with words, he can easily do it himself or assemble a team of political strategists to do so. Instead, Tee Keat chose to be frank and direct in Party matters.

My advice is this - let us all judge the two personalities based on performance and the path that we want MCA to walk down from this point on, not a juggling act of words play.

Also, change the path and structure of the Save MCA Movement.

Instead of spending time to bring down one after another leadership (not just the President), why not go to the ground to talk to the people every week and spend the money for children who needs food, education and the poor who needs shelter ?

To say that Tee Keat is the one causing disunity in the party, I disagree. To reform MCA, the Party needs to undergo changes in attitude and mentality painstakingly.

We do not deny that transparency and accountability were not at the highest level back then given the lack of political awareness over the past few decades that have provided a huge comfort zone to politicians all these while .

Ever since his journey into politics, Tee Keat has shown the way which many politicians are practising in Australia, United Kingdom, Taiwan, Japan and of course United States.

I need not remind everyone about the school funds allocation case when Tee Keat was in his Youth days, do I ?

It was highly controversial back then but I shall let it stay buried and "forgotten". I wasn't very much into politics back then anyway so my knowledge of that merely came from the papers.

Today, we have the PKFZ scandal where Ong Tee Keat with his own initiatives and together with the Executive orders of the Barisan Nasional Cabinet walked the talk to tell all to the Malaysian public - a responsibility they owe to the people when given the mandate to govern the country.

These ethics and values are being integrated into the system and set by the Party President as a bar for members, current and future leaders to follow suit.

Yet, while doing so, many toes were stepped on. Some people even said that Tee Keat is merely play acting with the PKFZ story.

This is not true. In fact, Tee Keat was the one who first promised that there will be no stones left unturned and received the endorsement/orders from the Cabinet to carry out his duties.

People who knows Tee Keat will be able to tell that his personality his direct, frank and not a hush-hush person.

The PKFZ issue will be detailed out soon based on facts, efforts and questions as we consider the future path of MCA - an Agenda for Change - and not some big talk to "Save MCA".