Reading between the lines of the Umno-controlled newspapers, one could sense a subtly strong sentiment of frustration and indignation against Team A MCA and its leader-cum-party president Dr Ling Liong Sik for not giving a quid pro quo , namely the delay of the party elections until the disputed membership list is exorcised of the alleged phantom members, for the commitment and concession made by Team B to cancel its proposed extraordinary general meeting (EGM).

(Team As stance has changed slightly since this article was written on Saturday, following yesterday's meeting with the prime minister, and MCA has decided to 'temporarily' postpone the divisional-level elections.)

The perceived intransigence, arrogance and bad faith on the part of Team A and Ling reflect poorly on the managerial capability and political trustworthiness of the peacemakers, namely Barisan Nasional chairperson and Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, his deputy Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and their agents. If Team A and Ling could go away from Putrajaya with that unequal deal with secret laughter, who would ever trust Umno and its Chinese Malaysian agents again?

In other words, if Team A and Ling succeed in their perceived perfidy, there is not much left in the credibility of Umno as the first among equals within the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition and the government. Other component parties might just emulate Team A and Ling, or make them their role models in other intra-coalition negotiations on the distribution of seats and other resources and benefits.

Get away with murder

Logically speaking, Umno and Mahathir cannot allow Team A and Ling go away from Putrajaya with murder. Most probably, the strategists of Team B are now secretly praying for drastic or extraordinary measures to be taken by Mahathir against Team A and Ling after the paramount leader returns from meeting Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

Holding the power of executive over the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) and the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA), the prime minister, finance minister, Umno president and BN chairperson is perhaps the last earthly hope for Team B in their secular crusade against Team A and Ling. Certainly, senior leaders and strategists of Team B still remember how a powerful MCA president, Tan Koon Swan, fell just after he was elected overwhelmingly by an MCA assembly in the late 1985 despite two years of factional struggle in MCA.

However, to believe that Ling does not know history and dynamics of the MCA-Umno relationship is naive. Love him or loathe him, the president and transport minister once studied at a military college and was educated in strategies and tactics.

Ling has probably discovered the differences between the situation now and in the time of Tan Koon Swan. Then, Umno was united and the ethnic Malays were also more or less solidly behind Umno, but that has evaporated in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 1998 Anwar Ibrahim debacle.

The results of the 1999 general election have clearly shown that Umno depended, and would continue to depend, on a strong MCA to deliver the Chinese Malaysian vote to Umno and BN, and at the same time offset the decline of Malay Malaysian and Muslim support.

Rationally, a weakened Umno cannot afford to further weaken MCA as it did in the past when the numero uno party was strong and united. Ling has probably calculated that, strategically, he and Team A now command unprecedented advantages over and above Umno, its dissidents and Gerakan, in its intra-coalition bargaining and power struggles.

After all, Mahathir is already 76 years old and fully preoccupied with a whole gamut of scientific, theological, financial, and political issues in Malaysia as well as internationally. His successor, Abdullah, is, unlike Ling and other three Umno vice-presidents, only an unelected leader in Umno.

Balancing rationality and irrationality

But irrationality sometimes prevails in politics as in the question of peace and war, especially when the ego and self-worth of the paramount leaders are challenged or damaged. Often, when political irrationality overwhelms rationality, momentary outbursts to regain honour, self-worth and dignity in the short run could take precedence over rational and cool-headed strategies for the longer run.

Ling seems to have mastered the art of balancing Mahathirs rationality and irrationality at least since 2000 when, under pressure to resign, he (Ling) responded by offering to quit his ministerial post but retain the presidency of MCA. At the height of the Suqiu controversy when Gerakan played the role of inducing the Suqiu Committee to compromise on 70 percent of the contents, Ling was on public record as saying that 98 percent of the Suqiu demands were acceptable.

To be sure, the hands of Mahathir are not yet absolutely tied. If he wanted to, he could, for example, induce the defections of Team A leaders and weaken Lings support base within the party even if, and when, Ling has already won the party election.

In other words, Mahathir does not have to antagonise the entire Team A, but only needs to isolate Ling and his diehard and ageing loyalists by promising concrete and definite hopes for younger leaders of Team A, such as Dr Fong Chan Onn, Dr Ng Yen Yen, Ong Ka Ting and his brother, Ka Chuan, in the post-Ling order and arrangement made by Umno for MCA.

But then again, Ling may not be short of wit, strategies and tactics to anticipate Mahathirs moves and neutralise them according to his (Lings) conceptualisation of the prevailing alignment of political forces in the country.

It is Sun Tzu versus Clausewitz, or soft versus hard.

Note : This is the final of a two-part analysis. The first is Umno-brokered MCA peace deal: winners and losers

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia

. Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew, he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute for 1998 and 1999.