With Tee Yong, MCA also cops out on Umno-Perkasa

With Tee Yong, MCA also cops out on Umno-Perkasa

Father's balls got squeeze , son has to " go stand " and make himself look like an idiot to save the father's balls from being squeezed .

Brilliant guy ? No , just like any potato you can buy off the streets !

Chua Tee Yong

Wong Choon Mei, Malaysia Chronicle

Chip-off-the-old block Chua Tee Yong, whose dad is MCA president Chua Soi Lek, has drawn ridicule and sharp rebuke from Pakatan Rakyat leaders for "excusing away" Prime Minister Najib Razak’s U-turn on ultra-Malay rights group Perkasa.

“This is a shocking statement coming from Labis, considering he is an MCA lawmaker who should understand and empathize with the feelings of the Chinese community rather than with Najib Tun Razak,” PAS chief strategist Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad told Malaysia Chronicle.

“It is a confirmation of what we have been warning all along. The BN is in trouble. Their components and their leaders are not able to grapple with issues that dominate the current times. They are not able to transition into new politics and debunk racism and religious bigotry, which is what the majority of Malaysian people are now demanding.”

Perkasa reflects the larger portion of the mindset in Umno

Dad Chua Soi Lek

Tee Yong, a 30-year old accountant, was given the opportunity to contest the Labis seat in the 2008 general election following his father’s resignation over a sex scandal. Soi Lek was once a high-flying Health minister before his downfall. However, he managed to make a comeback in the MCA special polls held earlier this year. His is now party president without a Cabinet portfolio and has promised not to seek re-election in the MCA 2011 polls.

Nonetheless, the father-and-son team stirred further controversy when in June 2010, Najib appointed Tee Yong a deputy minister in the agricultural ministry. The appointment was made on Soi Lek’s recommendation, which created unhappiness in the MCA as it reeked of nepotism. MCA watchers believe the move was a fatal political step, predicting Soi Lek would surely be ousted if he reneged on his word and contested next year, unless he won support from Najib’s Umno.

“Can it be that Chua Tee Yong is naïve like his father Chua Soi Lek and both men cannot see that Perkasa is an out-sourced extremist unit for Umno? In reality, Perkasa reflects the larger portion of the mindset in Umno and that is why Najib had to flip-flop,” PKR vice president Lee Boon Chye told Malaysia Chronicle.

“He and Muhyiddin are actually the same, they support Perkasa. Just that to keep the non-Malay vote from disappearing completely, Najib has to come out with 1Malaysia. But notice how it can never be implemented. There is always a flip-flop because the political will to reform is not real.”

Difficult for Umno

In an interview with Malaysian Insider, Tee Yong had professed sympathy for the Umno decision to reconcile with Perkasa after a showy parting of ways.

“It is difficult for Umno because, being a Malay party, they tend to get related to the Malay NGO, so it is wrong for them to totally disregard them,” Tee Yong was reported to have said.

“That is your view that Perkasa has a large support base. We do not know that for sure, do we? But they are not a party and they do not go for votes so it is not fair to say that. What about the WWF (World Wildlife Foundation)... they too are an NGO. Should we say, then, that they have the support of all the people? We cannot assume. I maintain that we are giving Perkasa too much prominence... if they are a political party, for arguments’ sake, then maybe you have some bearing to say this.”

PAS' Dr Dzulkefly

On September 8, Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan started the brouhaha by saying: “As a secretary-general I can tell you, we have nothing to do with Perkasa, and certain things Perkasa is doing we are not happy with because they are eroding our support. When they talk about my Chinese friends or my Indian friends, they make us lose more votes.”

His comments were hailed by MCA, MIC and Gerakan but former premier Mahathir Mohamad condemned the move as “suicidal” for Umno.

Despite Tee Yong’s effort to downplay the Umno-Perkasa reconciliation and its implications on the BN and Malaysia's multiracial society, MCA secretary general Kong Cho Ha had said in a statement on September 9:

"MCA welcomes the comments by various UMNO leaders in distancing themselves from the racist espousals of Perkasa led by its chairman Dato’ Ibrahim Ali by acknowledging that such association with Perkasa would lead to UMNO’s erosion of support.

"Meanwhile, we regret to read the remarks by a prominent public figure who claims that UMNO needs backing from Perkasa if it does not want to risk Barisan Nasional losing support. BN does not consist of only one political party, but is an alliance which comprises various political parties representing all the ethnic groups in Malaysia. Hence, BN thrives on the support rendered by every race, not only from the Malays."


But on September 18, Najib threw a spanner in the works by suddenly saying: “No, we do not want to be in conflict with any NGO. It (Perkasa) is just like any other NGO. We have so many NGOs. There are times we can agree, and there are times we cannot agree. No, I do not want to refer specifically to anyone.”

On September 19, Tengku Adnan duly denied his earlier remarks: “I didn’t even ask members of Umno to relinquish their relationship with Perkasa. It was totally blown out of proportion by Ibrahim Ali. When we had a meeting with BN secretaries-general, we never talked even a little bit that we wanted to distance ourselves from anybody. Our policy is to be close with everybody. We should even go and approach opposition members and explain what our policies are because they are misguided.”

With Tee Yong’s remarks, the MCA is the second BN component to cop out on the ‘sensitive’ Umno-Perkasa reconciliation. Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon was the first, refusing to give reporters direct answers and insisting that Najib's 1Malaysia slogan was still intact despite the PM's refusal to carry out the plan to jettison Perkasa and build a fresh political mandate for BN.