Lost amidst the chatter on PAS-Umno talks and PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy case is the fact that the second largest Barisan Nasional component party, MCA, will be having its party elections in October.

This race will be the most open in recent party history as both its president and deputy president – Ong Ka Ting and Chan Kong Choy respectively – are not contesting.

The next president will face tremendous challenges in presiding over a critical juncture in Malaysian politics. Who is it likely to be and is he up to the task?

parliamnet 160508 chua soi lek So far, Ong Tee Keat is the only leader who has publicly declared his intention to run for the president's post. It's unlikely that no one else will vie for the top spot. Three names have been bandied about are Chua Soi Lek ( right ), Ong Ka Chuan and Chua Jui Meng.

Some people have even joked about a Ong-Ong vs Chua-Chua (whatever the configuration for each) tag team tussle for the president and deputy president posts.

We think that Tee Keat is the one who will most likely win. It would be difficult for an aspiring MCA presidential candidate to succeed if he or she is not a cabinet member. This would immediately eliminate Soi Lek and Jui Meng. Both are not even MPs, let alone cabinet members. In addition, Soi Lek had the sex scandal and Jui Meng had already had his chance three years ago.

mca central commitee pc 240708 ong ka ting Ka Chuan ( photo, right ) would be the most obvious competitor to Tee Keat. He is the minister for housing and local government, which he 'inherited' from his brother Ka Ting ( photo, left ). He is a well-known entity within MCA having held the position of the national organising secretary for many years and has good grassroots networks across the country.

But his connection with Ka Ting, which had been a source of political strength, is also his greatest liability in contesting for the top post. Accusations of nepotism, already rife within the party, will take on a higher volume if he lobbies too hard for the presidency.

Apart from the Srinivasagam brothers, who dominated the PPP and Ipoh in the 1960s, there has not been a set of brothers that has been so prominent in any political party in Malaysia. It might be too much to ask MCA members to accept Ka Chuan as Ka Ting's successor.

mca nominations 2005 150805 ng yen yen nomination The other two cabinet ministers, Liow Tiong Lai and Ng Yen Yen, are unlikely to throw their hats into the presidential ring. Tiong Lai, currently the Youth chief and health minister, has expressed that he will not re-contest his Youth post. At the same time, he has also expressed his support for Tee Keat's run for the presidency. It is likely that he will either contest for the deputy president or one of the three vice-presidency posts.

Yen Yen, the first woman minister from MCA – the minister of women, family and community development – will likely want to clear the hurdle of being the first woman to be elected as one of the three VPs before she can take on the president's position.

Unwilling to speak up against Umno

By the process of elimination, that leaves us with Tee Keat, who we think is a shoo-in. What is less clear is whether he is the best person for the job at this crucial time in Malaysian politics.

ong tee keat interview 210708 03 There is no question that amongst the current batch of MCA leaders, he has the best public reputation. He is seen as something of a maverick and a lone ranger; outspoken and willing to disagree with some of his party leaders on certain issues of importance to the Chinese community.

He was one of the more outspoken leaders against the Huaren-led takeover of Nanyang Siang Pau , a very unpopular move within the Chinese community, and he had many public disagreements with former MCA president Ling Liong Sik.

More recently, he drew flak from within his own party and from other BN components for disclosing how his parliamentary 'allocation' was spent. His political hero growing up, it is said, was DAP leader Lim Kit Siang and there is a streak in him which mirrors that of his political hero.

hishamuddin hussein with keris 050805 But Tee Keat's reputation within the MCA is quite different from his public image. The main criticism being that as much a maverick as he may be, he is unwilling to speak up against Umno.

Is there any truth to that? The public record seems to indicate so.

While Tee Keat has been more than happy to take swings against leaders within his own party, he has been less trigger happy against leaders in Umno, most notably those within Umno Youth who were his 'colleagues', when he was the MCA Youth chief.

He was noticeably quiet at the height of the keris-raising incident at the Umno General Assembly in 2005. He was also silent when Deputy Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin attacked non-Malay BN component parties.

umno mca gerakan bn component parties election 290708 While being able to stand up against Umno might not have been that crucial for MCA in the past, this is no longer the case in light of MCA's dismal showing in the general election where it lost all of its Chinese-majority seats, largely because of the perception that MCA was kowtowing too much to Umno.

Ka Ting has been markedly more vocal post March 8 after he opted not to take up a cabinet position. But that's really a case of too little, too late. It's not yet the case for Tee Keat, who is an important minister. If he applies some of that maverick attitude in his dealings with Umno, he might yet capture the imagination of the Chinese public.

ONG KIAN MING is a PhD candidate in political science at Duke University and OON YEOH is a writer and new media analyst. You can listen to both of them discuss this topic in their Realpolitik podcast .

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