MCA polls: The horse trading season begins
It is important for both Tee Keat and Ka Ting to be mindful that the person securing 45 percent of the delegates’ support may well take the prize. We would expect position bargaining and swapping to take on a more frenzied note, with chairmanship of The Star, PKA, KTM, and even deputy chairmanship of Maybank (part of MCA’s entitlements in the BN pact) on offer.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
By Two Cents, Free Malaysia Today
The MCA race which sees a total of 101 candidates going for 31 posts has finally started. Now comes the thousand-man dinners so beloved of MCA traditionalists, the love mails, the hate mails and the blatant use of The Star to praise The Beloved Leader. Add to this the clumsy attempts by all contenders to use cyberspace and blogsphere ala Umno-troopers.
However in reality, it’s down to the 2,400 delegates and their handlers. In fact, more specifically it is down to the five percent of the delegates who may still be floaters — party parlance for those with an independent mind and yet to make up their final decisions.
The balance — 95 percent of the delegates — would have their firm affiliations and loyalty to their handlers and lords. Often, contenders for party posts make the mistake of playing to the public gallery and mistake the non-insiders’ irrelevant support as their mandate from heaven.
The battle lines are clearly drawn among the three camps: clearly the most organised and in tight formation must be the Dr Chua Sui Lek camp, which consists of veterans and stalwarts from the Ling (Liong Sik) era like Ng Yen Yen, Kong Cho Har, Tan Chai Ho and others.
This team has fought three campaigns, including the last EGM and held its almost 40 percent support among the delegates steady. Old war dog Ling, despite his denial, is clearly backing this group.
On the other hand, the Ong Ka Ting camp is still recalling its soldiers and old loyalties. He is banking on brother Ka Chuan’s substantial grassroots support in Perak as well as Chan Kong Choy’s and Liow Tiong Lai’s footmen.
Ka Ting, having been the Sabah state chief during the 1990s, is also hoping for at least half the state’s support. He would be able to count on his blue-eyed girl Chew Mei Fun to deliver a substantial support from Wanita delegates.
A reliable estimate of his core support would be around 30 to 35 percent of the delegates. He also has the moral support of some old party stalwarts like Lim Ah Lek who shudders at the thought of Chua helming the party.
Incumbent Ong Tee Keat, meanwhile, came into the presidency as a result of a block support from the Ka Ting’s group in 2008, as well as the then anybody-but-Chua lobbyists. His present support base comes from those he appointed to key positions as well as largesse from the incumbency, including treasurer Tee Hock Seng and some young gunslingers appointed into the central committee.
He will use the formidable incumbent’s infrastructure advantage as well as his hatchet men at The Star to maximise his advantage. However, it is doubtful if that will save him. His crazed purge of Wee Ka Siong and Mei Fun led to Tee Keat’s almost total divorce from the Youth wing and only token tolerance in the Wanita. On his own, he will be hard pressed to raise more than 20 percent of delegates to his cause.
The Wee factor
Tee Keat must be rueing his decision to cast aside Wee as he appears as the likely spoiler in determining the next president with his estimated five percent votes that he carries. Despite his show of support to Liow, Wee is known to have his own mind.
The eventual victor will come from a camp that can hold its core block together and with some adroit manoeuvring builds upon an alliance with people like Wee and possibly Chew.
It is likely that Chua’s camp will be the one which will take advantage of these alliances. It is believed that Chua will almost certainly move to offer the secretary-general’s post and a full ministry to Wee.
And if Chua is smart, he will throw in his minister’s post for bargaining and alliance building where he will take the (former Gerakan chief) Lim Keng Yaik’s gambit to focus on party building and not accept any ministerial post till the party is strong again.
It is important for both Tee Keat and Ka Ting to be mindful that the person securing 45 percent of the delegates’ support may well take the prize. We would expect position bargaining and swapping to take on a more frenzied note, with chairmanship of The Star, PKA, KTM, and even deputy chairmanship of Maybank (part of MCA’s entitlements in the BN pact) on offer.
Predictable campaign lines
If we were to venture to make a prediction here, it must be said that the chances for the anti-Chua block to win is higher if incumbent Tee Keat finds some reasons to withdraw to allow the former president Ka Ting to make it a straight fight.
The campaign lines will be predictable. Chua will bang on the sorry state of the party as a result of the past two failed presidency.
He will drop hints of his close links to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and especially to deputy premier Muhyuddin Yassin, though he should be mindful that such a tactic may backfire given the present mood.
Most importantly, he will stress that he has paid a heavy price for an indiscretion, and that he has faced it like a man and has paid his dues.
Ka Ting, meanwhile, will position himself as the reluctant candidate, the ultimate sacrifice to abandon his cozy retirement for the love of party and community. He will campaign on his past record of stabilising the party and rolling out elders like Ah Lek to endorse him.
Foreseeably at some point in the campaigning, he will be forced to again deny he is building a dynasty or warming the president’s seat for his brother, as well as having to answer to anointing Tee Keat to a disastrous presidency.
For his part, Tee Keat will continue to talk about how he is carrying the cross now for daring to expose the PKFZ scandal. He will drop increasingly unsubtle hints of Umno’s desperation to kill him off using Chua.
His platform of “sorry-I-screwed- up-the-first-time” and “let me finish my job” will be echoed at every turn by The Star, but his biggest challenge will be to answer honestly what will be his turnaround road map, if ever there was one, for the party.
Given the expedient nature of politics, it is highly possible that a last-minute alliance between the two Ongs will be struck or Tee Keat may risk substantial desertion by his lieutenants to Ka Ting.
It is unlikely that any scenario, short of the above, will stop the Chua phalanx.
Two Cents is a pseudonym of an MCA observer with inside track in the party. This is the second of a three-part series in which he attempts to provoke the party to wake up from its deep slumber and regain its lost status. In this first part, he wrote about the three candidates vying for the presidential post and in his final part, he will give his views and strategies on how to make MCA relevant again.
