That the Umno-dominated National Front (BN) is now reportedly drafting a set of "enforceable" rules to prevent elected representatives from defecting to another component party within the coalition is one of the many signs that inter-party relations within BN is not as cozy as portrayed by the media they control.

The proposed "enforceable rules" certainly has in mind the ongoing feuds between MCA and Gerakan, two organised sources of Chinese support for the ethno-nationalist Umno.

The feud seemingly began after the 1999 general election when two of the elected state representative of Gerakan, Lim Boo Chang (Datuk Keramat) and Lim Chien Aun, crossed over to MCA. The two Lims, although relatively young, are no ordinary backbenchers.

Boo Chang's late father was one of the founders and veterans of Gerakan in Penang, and a man who was instrumental in assisting Gerakan to topple the MCA-dominated state government in 1969. The fall of the MCA brought into power a Gerakan-controlled regime led by Dr Lim Chong Eu whose son is none other than defector Chien Aun.

Chong Eu himself was a MCA president for a short period from 1958 to 1959. After a highly emotional dispute with Umno over the allocation of seats within the then Umno-dominated Alliance (forerunner of the National Front), he left MCA with a group of supporters to form a new opposition party, the United Democratic Party (UDP). Later, he joined Gerakan.

Symbolic coup

Seen in this historical perspective, MCA could be considered to have successfully staged a highly symbolic coup against Gerakan 30 years later. However, there was a more current and rationally calculated dimension about the coup.

For before the 1999 general election, the MCA leadership, both at the national and state levels had been working very hard and even smart to "re-capture" the state government from Gerakan and regain the post of the state's chief minister. It occurred within the organisational framework of the BN.

Gerakan certainly had reasons to fume because MCA was suspected to have organised a series of covert campaigns under the covers of some Chinese civil organisations (including the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce under the leadership of Tan Kok Peng) to undermine the authority and credibility of the Gerakan chief minister, Dr Koh Tsu Koon, as well as the state government he led.

The then MCA vice president, Ong Ka Ting, was believed in some Gerakan quarters to be the ring leaders of those anti-Gerakan united front in Penang. Ong is now the president of MCA.

From the perspective of MCA "purists" like Ong, because Penang is a Chinese-dominated state and itself an exclusively Chinese party, there was nothing wrong for it to wrest power from a Chinese-predominated multiethnic party which is always seen by MCA diehards as "impure".

As an exclusively mono-ethnic Chinese party that self-styles itself to be "the champion of Chinese rights", MCA always unilaterally see all things "Chinese" - from Chinese-language newspapers and journalists to schools and kindergartens, television and radio programmes, chambers of commerce and civil organisations, etc - as falling within its natural sphere of influence or even domination.

However, from Gerakan's viewpoint, MCA should not "stab its back" because they are both component parties of the BN. Also, only holding the Penang government as its tangible power base, Gerakan saw MCA's moves as an existential threat, or threat to its very survival.

Chinese chauvinism

Umno then seemed to have thrown its weight behind Gerakan for fear of the uncontrollable growth of MCA's "Chinese chauvinism". Whatever the ideological mumbo-jumbo, it has always been to Umno's interest to use Gerakan to balance against MCA, or vice versa. Thus, MCA failed in this grand design in 1999.

Dissident factions in MCA have often been used by Umno to check any group that is seen to be critical. For example, in the 1959 Umno-MCA power struggle, the former did use a pro-Umno group of MCA leaders led by former finance minister Tan Siew Sin to mount pressure on Chong Eu from within MCA, and to cause him and his anti-Umno faction to quit the party.

Read in this context, the post-1999 defection of Boo Chang and Chien Aun from Gerakan to MCA can be seen as a MCA's political revenge and a reassertion of the will to fight on against Gerakan.

What is even more interesting to note is that after the 1999 general election when the Malay/Muslim voters deserted Umno en masse, MCA can now publicly claim to have "saved" Umno and the BN in many ethnically mixed constituencies.

To some insightful MCA top leaders and strategists, the balance of forces within BN have shifted in its favour vis--vis Umno and Gerakan after the 1999 general election. This perception or assessment probably explains why MCA has become more and more publicly vocal on some issues, including the language switch controversy and the Penang Outer Ring Road (Porr) project.

In the debate on Porr in the Penang state assembly last year, two MCA state representatives abstained from voting to support the Gerakan government and one of the duo was none other than Boo Chang. As top leaders of MCA came to their public defence amidst the loud and clear demand of Gerakan and some Umno leaders to have them sacked or at least severely disciplined, Gerakan again fumed and saw it as another around of MCA's provocation.

Although Boo Chang and his comrade, Tan Cheng Liang were "suspended indefinitely" (without any time frame stated) for a few months, they were accepted back into MCA recently allegedly without the explicit and multilateral endorsement from Umno and Gerakan. Again, Gerakan publicly fumed for a while, although Umno uncharacteristically keeps quiet.

Behind the scene

Why did Umno not join Gerakan now to publicly reprimand MCA for its unilateral decision to accept back the Porr duo, as it did in the case of MCA's controversial purchase of two Chinese newspapers earlier?

The answer seems to be the pathetic failure of Umno's intervention into the internal power struggle of MCA that lasted for three years, and probably still continues underground or behind the scenes. It seems that, initially, Umno decided to ally itself with Gerakan and discreetly back up the dissident faction, Team B in its campaign to, at least, check and balance against the dominant faction, Team A.

Unexpectedly, it failed miserably because Team B was really not strong organisationally and financially. Team A was not only stronger, but also seemed to have the strategic foreknowledge about the dark design of Umno and Gerakan, and it also had the willpower to defeat it by pitting the interests of Mahathir against those of his successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Although the paramount leader of Team A, Dr Ling Liong Sik has "retired" but his position is taken over by none other than his trusted protg Ong Ka Ting who still controls the vital organisations of the party and the newspapers it owns. Even without Ling, Team A is still strong and very much in command of the party.

Umno has to back down at least for now to the conclusion of the coming general election when it will need MCA's support to mobilise Chinese support to offset the possibly continuing decline of that of the Malays/Muslims.

Tactical compromise

However, Umno, especially Mahathir is known to be remarkably capable of tactical compromise or feigned retreat while keeping its strategic and ideological objectives in mind, and it would strike when the balance of forces shifts back in its favour.

For example, just before the 1999 general election, Mahathir was reported in the Chinese media to have given endorsement to Suqiu (a set of electoral demands drafted by a group of Chinese non-governmental organisations), but after it had won enough Chinese votes to keep it in power, he turned around and publicly denounced the Suqiu committee as "Chinese chauvinists" and "communists".

Another example is the 1986 general election. On its eve, many top MCA leaders, including its president Tan Koon Swan were already publicly known to have committed criminal breach of trust in managing the party-linked public businesses, but they were smilingly tolerated by Mahathir and Umno, and even allowed to contest in the general election under the BN banner to pull Chinese votes for Umno. After enough Chinese votes were obtained through Tan's popularity and organisational strength, they (including Tan) were arrested, charged and convicted.

In the mid-1980s at a time when Mahathir had just assumed the Umno presidency and premiership, Umno secretly feared Tan and his faction, who advocated a fusion of big business, politics of mass organisation and the ideology of "Chinese unity " purportedly to counterbalance against Umno's politico-financial-media "empire".

Thus, the structural dynamics of the triangular love-hate relations among Umno, MCA and Gerakan (and MCA's Team B) dictates that, in the coming general election, it is to the interests of Umno, Gerakan and MCA's Team B to empower each other. But it seems that the meat for Umno, Gerakan and MCA's Team B is also the poison for MCA's Team A. (Part 2 to follow )

JAMES WONG WING On is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM). Wong is a former member of Parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily (now Sin Chew 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 (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.