Emulating its fellow component parties, MIC should also adopt a political change by electing a new president at the next MIC presidential elections to be held in March 2009.

If S Samy Vellu were to stand again as MIC president in March 2009, that single decision alone will further erode the Indian community’s support for Barisan Nasional and MIC and will further drive Indian voters away from BN.

Then BN can forever forget about enlisting the support of the Indians even if the next prime minister Najib Abdul Razak extends an olive branch to the Indian community.

Samy Vellu has also announced that upon getting elected as the MIC president in March 2009, he will hand over the leadership of the party to the deputy president of MIC to be elected at the MIC party elections in September 2009.

So what is that ‘something’ that Samy Vellu is going to achieve in that six months between March 2009 and September 2009?

He is not even a minister now so what is that he is going to achieve for the Indian community and MIC in six months as party president that he could not achieve during his last 30 years as party president and cabinet minister?

When Samy Vellu steps down as party president in September 2009, the new president of the MIC taking over from Samy Vellu will only be an ‘acting president’ for a long period of 2 ½ years until the next party elections.

Therefore, the next MIC president after Samy will only be an ‘acting’ president and will be seen as a ‘lame duck’ and very weak and will be unable to garner the support of the Indian Community at the crucial hour.

Therefore, it is only good for MIC and BN if Samy Vellu steps down in March 2009 to pave the way for a new president to be elected through a free and fair party elections where the branch chairpersons (who are the voters in the presidential election) are not threatened or forced to vote for certain candidates..

The branch chairpersons of MIC should realise that the destiny and future of the MIC and the Indian community is in their hands and it is they who would be deciding as to who should be the next party president.

This will be the only proper way for MIC and BN to regain the trust of the Indian community.

Therefore, I urge the BN party leadership, all the party ranks in MIC and the whole Malaysian Indian community to step up efforts and pressure on Samy Vellu to step down in March 2009 to pave way for the new President to be elected. When similar changes can be effected successfully in MCA and Umno which are much bigger than MIC, we don’t see a justifiable reason why the same cannot happen in MIC.

The writer is president, Indian Association, Butterworth.