A new hope for MCA?

An old man sat in a corner table, amid a sea of white and blue uniformed delegates who thronged the Wisma MCA 60th Annual General Meeting(AGM) last weekend.

The MCA veteran, who spent over half a decade in the party, then started to sing:

“…How many years can a mountain exist, before it's washed to the sea? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind… the answer is blowing in the wind”.

This song by Bob Dylan, the politician explained with a grin, was “exactly how I feel about the party today.”

Could this old timer’s choice of song reflect the mood of the 2,300 odd delegates, who on Saturday voted in MCA’s new leadership line-up under its new president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai?

Like the lyrics of the song, the 64-year-old party is looking for answers to save itself from plunging into political oblivion.

For the largest Chinese based party in Malaysia, the 2013 AGM was its ‘do or die’ or ‘watershed moment' and, in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s words, a ‘last call’ to wake up.

MCA’s unfortunate fall

MCA’s performance began going downhill since 2008, when it ended up with only 15 federal and 32 state seats.

Efforts to resuscitate the party were foiled especially after the 2010 leadership crisis between former president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and his then deputy Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.

During the 13th General Elections on May 5, the party suffered an embarrassing moment when it only managed to win seven parliamentary and 11 state seats.

The 6.9 million odd Chinese— which make up 27% of the country’s 29 million population— had abandoned MCA in droves, a trend that was later coined a 'Chinese tsunami'.

The importance of this AGM to the party of 1.146 million members was revealed when a record number of delegates turned up to vote. Out of the total 2,384 delegates, only 28 stayed home, which meant a historic turnout of 98.66%

This strong turnout indicated that these delegates still harbored strong hopes that MCA can rise again from the ashes. Many who spoke to Astro AWANI expressed this ‘hope’, despite admitting to having “reached rock bottom” due to a myriad of issues which plagued the party.

“There are some, not many, who whisper about dissolving the party, or leaving BN, but for me, there is hope, I must hope. We can start again,” said a Wanita MCA leader from a Southern state.

The perennial race issue

However, she noted that the party’s core problems remained unchanged.

“Why were we rejected? Let’s be honest, we know the answers. The people want things to be more equal. They are frustrated.”

“I am proud of my Prime Minister but he cannot continue to allow his party to be so Malay. We are multiracial, and we shouldn’t fight for just one (race), but fight for all. Let us talk to UMNO about this,” she said, saying that government appointed positions should prioritise capability and not race.

With MCA pushing itself into a ‘new era’, party leaders again began to speak up about the perennial political see-saw between UMNO and MCA over racial policies.

During the AGM, Liow promised to speak up ‘without fear or favour’ on these matters, though critics say that his expected continuation of the MCA’s old style of ‘roundtable consensus’ discussions would hardly change status quo.

However, his new deputy Datuk Wee Ka Siong seemed to have positioned himself as the more vocal ‘bad cop’. A strategy some say could effectively pressure BN to reform contentious issues such as race-based affirmative action that MCA said should be needs-based.

Although UMNO’s alleged ‘extremism’ was a hot topic during the AGM, a number of delegates had also wanted the party to look inwards as well.

“Stop blaming UMNO for your loses, because our 7-11 Parliamentary and State seats was won with Malay votes and UMNO help too,” said a former MCA Youth leader.

Delegates had even suggested that MCA should be ‘less Chinese’, and instead fight for all races at all times. Shouting about Chinese rights all the time, said the Youth wing, would scare away younger voters, many of whom prefer politics that go beyond skin-colour.

Uniting factions and camps

Another issue within the party openly admitted during the AGM was the ever existing factionalism. This was clearly seen in the results which saw almost half of the votes going to both camps during the announcement of its top leadership.

Liow had garnered 1,186 votes and defeated Gan Ping Sieu, who had received 1,000 votes. Liow’s votes represented only slightly more than half of the delegates at 51%.

Wee’s win against Datuk Donald Lim however, was more convincing and the race for the other positions saw an almost equal division of votes.

The race for the four vice-presidency posts saw both Chua and Liow camps getting two-each— namely the tag-team of Datuk Lee Chee Leong and Datuk Chua Tee Yong on Chua’s team; and Datin Paduka Chew Mei and Datuk Hou Kok Chung on Liow’s.

The 25 Central Committee was almost split in the middle with Liow faction’s candidates winning 11 seats, while the Chua faction had at least 10.

These votes were more or less a carbon copy of the ‘unity peace deal’ that Liow and Chua brokered to prevent factionalism.

Sentiment of whether this was good for MCA was divided. For delegates, the obvious factionalism and infighting in their top ranks definitely weakened the spirit at the grassroots.

“When you have top leaders that only give support in resources to their own factions at the bottom, then that sends the wrong message, people won’t work hard,” said an MCA delegate.

For political analyst and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Iseas) visiting fellow Dr James Chin, this clear division of the party could spell trouble for the party if not handled well.

“On one hand it is sometimes positive to have a good mix, but on the other hand it may just cause more quarrels,” he said.

Chin said that if Liow’s ‘unity’ pledge is not fulfilled well, and is seen having weak support, the other faction may gear up to mount a challenge against him.

A song of hope

Back at the corner table at Wisma MCA, the singing MCA veteran agreed that disunity is one of MCA’s biggest problems.

“Stop the infighting. There are too many warlords, like ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ but there is no romance, just gangs against gangs without followers,” he said.

With a glint in his eyes, he said he had another song for the MCA that he “loved”, oddly, a well-known song often used by protestors.

“We shall overcome… we shall overcome…We shall overcome someday…Oh, deep in my heart I do believe…We shall overcome someday”

At the end of the day, the Chinese community are watching and waiting for real action to be taken rather than rhetoric of the ‘Viagra’ or ‘100 plus’ kind.

While MCA is full of hope that it can overcome problems within its party, deal with its BN partners and tackle the Opposition at the same time; it remains to be seen how this ‘hope’ can translate into solid votes come GE14.