The amateur political drama being played out in MCA has neither impressed nor engrossed anyone, let alone the Chinese community that the party has promised to serve. The past two years of bitter bickering has ensured that the MCA has ceased to be relevant to Malaysian politics. And the blame for the party’s predicament lies with the current leadership, a leadership that failed to lead when it mattered most – after 12 ^th general election.

Now, after the mess, the same leaders are gearing for fresh elections so the delegates can once again scratch their heads in disbelief at the lack of quality leaders in MCA. Let’s briefly analyse the role-players who are now making all sort of pacts behind MCA’s glass doors, formulating winning equations for the elections that they think is a solution to the predicament they find themselves in.

Ong Tee Keat, the president - who has no presidential grace whatsoever - has to be the most incompetent political leader in MCA history. His greed, lies and incompetence both in tact and tactics have combined to make MCA the laughing stock of the nation. After spending the first half of his presidency denouncing the immoral and deceitful Chua Soi Lek, he proceeds to spend the second half of his presidency holding Soi Lek’s hands in a truce.

And, to make matters worse, he has dragged MCA down the rabbit’s hole with his constant moaning and griping about how everybody else is out to cull him because of his Port Klang Free Zone ‘efforts’. To those who think Ong is genuine about PKFZ, just take a look at the MCA headquarters finances these last two years. There has been no transparency at all.

In fact, there hasn’t been a budget tabled for the expenses incurred by the headquarters this year and it’s already March 2010. Money has been spent on new personnel without checks and balances and this runs into the millions. Add to this Ong’s incompetence in dealing with Chinese issues as well as his failures at BN level which has made him quite the rotten apple in the prime minister’s eyes.

This was confirmed by the refusal of the PM to attend MCA’s AGM, despite desperate appeals by Ong whose political future now hangs by a thread. So fragile is Ong’s state that it is common knowledge in MCA circles that he had has informal talks with PKR.

Going on to Soi Lek, MCA grass-rooters are seething with him as he has painted a terrible picture about Chinese values to the rest of the country. After his sex video debacle, Soi Lek had the temerity to tell his BN colleagues that it’s normal for Chinese men to have concubines and it is even a sign of status. He had done this to assure them that position in MCA will not be affected by the video and that any sacking would be more a political move by Ong as opposed to a decision on his morals.

The fact that Soi Lek failed in his bid to regain the deputy presidency at the EGM is the clearest indication of the grassroots’ anger at his behaviour.

Moving on to Liow Tiong Lai and his faction, it is clear that of the three, Liow is the most trustworthy and has kept the party’s interests at heart. However, his indecisiveness in dealing with the two rogues mentioned above has led many in the party to question his leadership. If he has aggressively condemned Ong and Soi Lek after the EGM, he might have made some inroads, however unpleasant.

Instead, Liow stayed passive and hoped the both of them would come to their senses and put the party first. This of course never happened, and Liow lost valuable time in terms of cleaning the party up.

Now, how are fresh elections supposed to fix MCA if it’s the same tainted candidates are going to run for office? The grassroots deserve better elections. The last decent leader who led them was Ong Ka Ting, who stayed true to his word and resigned once his promises had been kept.

It is, however, a shame that Ka Ting has moved away from MCA and no amount of persuasion can make him change his mind. So where does that leave MCA? Those running for office must take stock of their reputations and honestly make a decision for the future of the party.

Knowing these ‘leaders’ though, it is obvious that they will only make selfish manoeuvres and destroy the party even further.