Whose party Is MCA? An old friend sent me an SMS in Chinese on the MCA quandary saying, “People like you and me can only embrace each other and cry”. I can understand his feelings as he was active in MCA during the 70’s. It was also a leadership crisis which caused him to quit politics. The history of MCA has more pages written about leadership battles than representing the Chinese in national development. Since the days of Tan Cheng Lock, disagreement with Lim Chong Eu caused the latter to set up Party Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (Gerakan) with other intervening events in between. Tan Siew Sin, Minister of Finance from 1959 -1974, expelled Dr Lim Keng Yaik in 1961. Lim became the president of Gerakan from 1980 to 2007. The events that followed saw Lee San Choon causing his charismatic deputy, Richard Ho, to be purportedly betrayed by his own political secretary. Then came the San Choon-Michael Chen tussle. The conflict between Dr Neo Yee Pan and Tan Koon Swan was catastrophic. Neo expelled 14 party leaders including Dr Ling Liong Sik, Tan Koon Swan and Lee Kim Sai, and left behind memories of raking up ghosts membership in the party. The feud between Team A and Team B during Ling Liong Sik’s time is still fresh on everyone’s mind. Just when the battle smoke appeared to be settling, and the changes in the party he talked about everyday appeared to be taking shape, Ong Ka Ting masterminded the March 2008 general election loss by arrogantly fielding freshies (one candidate joined MCA only months before the election) as candidates. “He thought the community will vote for his candidate even if it was a dog” was a comment opining Ong’s utter disrespect for the Chinese community. MCA was returned with only 15 parliamentary seats – the lowest since the 1969 general election. MCA won 13 parliamentary seats in 1969 – the lowest since Independence. The current MCA debacle is the most shameful of all, as it was sparked off by a sex scandal. The central player in the sex DVD challenged the incumbent president as he wants to lead the party of one million members. He challenged the incumbent to a vote-of-no-confidence and Ong Tee Keat lost by 14 votes. Now, the old gang of “former leaders” felt that this young hand, barely one year in office, has no ability to lead the party. So they want to come out to “salvage” the party. When the EGM became unavoidable, there were doubts whether the central delegates would be voting for themselves or did they have the mandate of the divisions. Some felt that “there was too much vested interest in the delegates’ decision, that the community’s interest does not seem important.” Of all the press headlines I have read since the October 10 EGM, the most meaningful one was, “MCA unlikely to rebuild in time for general elections”. My personal feelings is that this should be the guiding light for Ong Tee Keat’s decision to stay and continue with the things he was first elected to do as president of the party. By the provisions of the party constitution, the EGM was held. We cannot run away from reality. Yes, Tee Keat lost by 14 votes. Consider his position: helpless at the receiving end of his peers’ wrath resulting from Ong Ka Ting dropping 30% of the incumbents in the 2008 general election and faced with such events of unreason from a mad man who wants to run the affairs of the Chinese in the country with his pants down. Barely one year in office, is such an outcome a surprise? Which, may I ask, of the past presidents of MCA dares to declare he can survive a vote-of-no-confidence in the very same EGM? Therefore, by the same provisions in the constitution which enabled the emergency meeting, the EGM did not remove Tee Keat from his position as president. The narrow margin of defeat should not be played up by the media to crucify this victim of circumstances. Mintzberg (1998) classified political organizations as being characterised by conflict, spiked by ego and without an overall coordinating mechanism. How much longer can the Chinese just embrace each other and cry? We need someone to whitewash these pages of conflict in the party’s history. This someone cannot be any of the “former leaders” for the simple reason that it was they who cultured (as in organizational culture) the current breed of central delegates. Their re-entry in the party administration will cause repeats of past failures. Further, they have not unlearned their pre-2008 arrogance nor relearned new societal norms, wishes, wants and needs of the young electorate of the next general election. MCA needs to change and the leader must be forward-looking, someone contemporary, someone with sufficient experience in politics, someone with vision for transformation of the party to meet community demands. Tee Keat, a mechanical engineer and a Chinese newspaper columnist, had been in active politics since 1986 when he became the political secretary of Lee Kim Sai. He has served four presidents before moving up the ranks to become president in 2008. While others fell, he was returned by the community in three consecutive general elections. Tee Keat should continue to do what he was mandated to do. Dr Daphne Loke USA, (via email)