‘So who is a winnable candidate?' This was a recent headline in the Malay Mail . To this question, I would like to add the question "Does it matter?"

The constituency concerned is the Pandan Parliamentary seat.

Incumbent Ong Tee Keat, the ex-MCA president, is hoping against hope that BN chairperson, Najib Razak, would give him the nod in defiance of MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek's choice - Gary Lim, a young lawyer.

In life, it has been proven many a time that "What man proposes, God disposes." What Dr Chua proposes (and for that matter, any BN component party president proposes), Najib disposes, and can dispose as he pleases!

So, the MCA president can propose any number of names for all the constituencies. Finally the BN chairperson is the taiko and he decides; and what the latter decides carries weight. Right?

So, all the others can suck their thumbs until they are blue-black. They can cry and sob; they can go down on bended knees.

But, all these gestures are futile, for Umno means "U Must Not Object!". All of you can shut up and go to hell!

It is very silly of the MCA president to show his hand so early; and later get a tight slap in public when his choice is rejected.

Where is he going to show his face, especially to the Chinese community after the public humiliation?

Is he going to pull out of BN and make MCA independent? That is the only option left if he wishes to keep his dignity and that of MCA intact.

Can he show to the Chinese community that he is a man of integrity and that he will pull MCA out of BN?

You can bet your last dollar that he will not dare pull out; because it is too late in the day and the 13th general election is knocking at the door.

So, the next best thing for him to do is to shy away and weep silently in one corner.

What a great let-down it will be for him and for MCA. How does it look like to the voters at large?

He is a political eunuch; powerless, in spite of all the thunder of "hudud, hudud, hudud".

The only politician who showed his manhood was when the then-federal territories minister, Shahrir Samad, MP for Johor Baru, defied the then-premier, Mahathir Mohamad, resigned his ministerial post (which lesser beings would have hung onto for dear life), vacated his parliamentary seat in Johor Baru, and contested as an independent.

Against the whole BN machinery, he fought and won!

Here is a man, and a gentleman. Here is a man of principles. He didn't care who the prime minister was. He didn't care for BN. He fought alone and won.

There are MPs who jump ship but refuse to vacate their seats won on the back of their parties. They have no shame at all.

Where is their dignity? Their souls? Just like the traitor Judas Iscariot who sold his master, Jesus Christ, for thirty pieces of silver, there are many MPs who sold their souls for positions of power. What a shame.

So, does it matter whether a candidate is winnable or not?

After all, in the 2008 general election, the unwinnable candidates in Sungei Siput, Batu Kawan, Petaling Jaya Utara, and Hulu Selangor, to name a few, had no shred of dignity.

Despite being rejected by the voters, they became winnable ministers/deputy ministers.

To add the icing on the cake, the Umno Youth winner, Khairy Jamaluddin, had no place in the cabinet while the loser, Mukhriz Mahathir, became a deputy minister.

This is history. Nowhere in other nations do we see unwinnable candidates being appointed as ministers.

Nowhere, except in the Land of Boleh. Is it not a shame?

Where can Malaysia hold its head high in the world when losers at the polls became winners in the cabinet?

So, does it matter whether a candidate is winnable or not? No?

Then something is wrong upstairs.

We need a PSY-cho to decipher the brains of the losers and the taiko .