“Cowardice rightly understood begins with selfishness and ends with shame.”

- José Rizal, ‘Noli Me Tángere’

The spat between the MCA’s Ti Lian Ker and Umno’s Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz is not about the disparity of power between the component parties of BN but rather the continuing existential crisis of the MCA that it has been unable to overcome since losing the support of the Chinese community.

Whereas the MIC has accepted its role as the water boy to Umno, MCA desperately attempts relevance in a turbulent time of ‘Melayu’ political upheaval.

There has always been a disparity of power within BN. However, parity of power was never the currency between the MCA plutocrats and Umno potentates who shaped the national agenda and serviced the gravy train that enabled this country to remain in relative functionality for decades.

These schemers were aided by a polity willing to subscribe to the so-called social contract, as long as the people could pursue their economic agendas and live in relative harmony.

Ti’s contention that BN playing the ‘jaguh kampung’ (village champion) was causing BN to lose cosmopolitan votes is the kind of pussy-footing that that seems to be the only stratagems that the MCA these days is capable of coming up with.

I hope Pakatan supporters are not naïve enough to think that there is no nexus of connections between MCA plutocrats and DAP operatives working together for mutual benefit, which goes far beyond political profit. The same applies to Umno and its so-called political enemies.

First off, BN is not playing the ‘jaguh kampung’, Umno is in a ‘fight to the death’ struggle with Najib refuseniks and is attempting to keep their rural voting bases safe from the clutches of a newly revitalised Malay power group. The reality is that the rural demographic in the peninsula and Umno’s vote banks in Sabah and Sarawak are holding BN together, and this is because of Umno and not because of BN.

The reality is that, unofficially, Umno has given up on urban voters and it is the responsibility of MCA to shore up support and make the case for Umno and not BN. I am sure the MCA operative is aware that there are many Umno-elected officials who do not support Najib but are only interested in their political survival that translates to Umno’s survival.

After getting a spanking from Nazri, like a chastised child the MCA central committee member claims, "Now that the ultra-Malays who destroyed Tunku Abdul Rahman's Alliance are out of BN and in Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), BN leadership must seize this opportunity to navigate BN to its rightful 1Malaysia course or the spirit of the Alliance’s founding years of Tunku Abdul Rahman," which is again horse manure disguised as a mea culpa.

The thing that’s destroying MCA

The contradiction is obvious. First, Ti claims that Umno’s continued use of Malay nationalism for the support of rural voters is destroying BN’s chances in the urban areas, and then he paradoxically claims that with the ejection of so-called “ultra-Malays” from the parties - the very ones who reject the Najib regime - things could get back to normal.

The problem is that the so-called ultra-Malays are the ones in charge of Umno now. Moreover, I do not mean people like Nazri (photo) who has had run-ins with the ultra-Malay component of Umno, but I am sure would rather be attacking the Najib refuseniks than trading shots with a so-called “partner”.

This is the problem with throwing in with Umno, the very basis of power-sharing is based on communal preoccupations that either conflict with each other or are manipulated to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

If you want to survive in the game, then you have to spin the racists’ rhetorics for your partners but most importantly, have the support of the community you claim to represent. This is why Nazri has it both ways. This is why he gets to play the realpolitik card against the MCA operative, alluding to the former’s desire for political rejuvenation and the slim chance of it because of the lack of his community’s support and at the same time, slay Umno/Malay sacred cows.

And therein lies the problem. How does a race-based party operate when it has lost the majoritarian support of the community it claims to represent? How does a race-based party offer dissent or advice when it has to rely on the benefice of Umno to remain politically relevant? How does a race-based party counter the supposedly race-blind propaganda of the opposition when it does not have the support it needs to offer a counter-narrative because the community it supposedly represents has abandoned it?

As I wrote in ‘MCA’s long day’s journey into night’, “What is really destroying the MCA is not the propaganda of the DAP but the acceptance by a large voting demographic of the Chinese community that no representation in the government is better than MCA representation.”

In addition, this is not the first time Ti has stirred the pot. Some time back, Ti made the claim that the Federal Constitution was not inherently racist but those with racist intent manipulated its provisions.

I actually thought that MCA was on to something and singled out Ti, writing, “However, the MCA political operative did show some cojones when he said ‘we can consider amending or ratifying our constitution to free ourselves of racism’ but of course, he qualified this with the most overused, disingenuous, servile and obnoxious Malaysian excuse of ‘come a day when we are there - a matured and democratic nation’.”

However, Ti made the same nostalgic claim when he talked about bridge building and ‘Alliance’ cooperation when he correctly pointed out that the constitution needed to be amended, in his own waffling way. He makes the same claim in this mea culpa, alluding to the halcyon days of Alliance politics.

But as I quoted from Mavis Puthucheary’s article, ‘Malaysia's Social Contract - Exposing the Myth Behind the Slogan’: "In the first 10 years after Independence, the balance of power between the two main parties, Umno and the MCA, was more or less equal. After 1969, however, the balance of power within the ruling coalition shifted significantly in favour of Umno and the political system itself became less democratic.

“Although both parties fared badly in the 1969 elections, Umno leaders who had secured control of the government concentrated their efforts on regaining Malay support while still maintaining the power-sharing structure.”

In other words, for BN there is no going back. Unfortunately for MCA, this new alliance spearheaded by the powerbrokers in Pakatan Harapan and the Najib refuseniks is the closest things we will get to the flawed Alliance strategy of yore.

The MCA’s sin is that it does not have the courage either to support its partner, Umno, or leave BN.

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.