Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad pronounced it a business deal when the MCA bought Nanyang Press Holdings. The MCA president, Dr Ling Liong Sik, rammed the deal through, counting on his executive powers and his majority in the party presidential council and the central executive committee. He ignored the rumblings within the Chinese community, which looked upon it as a deliberate attempt to stifle the community's voice.

His arrogance superceded the concerns. His deputy president, Lim Ah Lek, and his small band of supporters took the issue to the branches and divisions, insisting that if MCA behaved as a fish out of water it could not survive as a political party of any note, and would bring the Barisan Nasional down with it. The community united against the MCA takeover, with its contributors refusing to write for it.

The purchase was paid for from the large cash reserves of the very profitable Star newspaper it controls through a company called Huaren Holdings. That raised a dissonant and discordant voice of throwing good money after bad.

Worse, it upset the staff of The Star who saw their six-month bonuses reduced to staunch the financial bleeding at Nanyang Press Holdings. If the opposition wanted to put MCA on the spot as its president has put it on, it could not have done better. If the Nanyang Siang Pau and the China Press continue as a newspaper, they can only limp into a soon-forgotten grave.

That MCA wanted to take over control of the two dailies was clear from the start. It took control the moment the deal was signed, frogmarching its senior executives and editors out of the office, and putting its own men in place. Dr Ling dared the community to do its worst. His arrogance, which until now was reserved for his detractors in the party, was flashed on the Chinese community, could not meet reality.

Published and be damned

Umno, which heads the BN government and has leadership problems similar to the MCA's, is now worried. Its deputy president, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, wants the MCA to close ranks and not discuss their differences over the Nanyang purchase in public. Indeed, it is now clear that Dr Ling was out of line when he forced the sale through, refusing to listen to the Ah Lek faction, and the community, of the dangers inherent in taking control of yet another mainstream newspaper.

All mainstream newspapers are controlled or run by men aligned to parties in BN. The government would not let the opposition publish a national newspaper, and the annual publishing and printing licence is a sufficiently tedious procedure for those out of line to continue to publish. 'Publish and be damned' is not an option for the Malaysian publisher.

So, it does not surprise that the MCA's 72 percent stake in Nanyang Press Holdings is for sale. Dr Ling now says all of it is for sale to anyone interested, local or foreign. Provided they express their interest in 10 days. In other words, intending buyers do not have the right to due diligence, and should buy it to let the MCA off the hook. He could not, in any case, sell it back to the Quek Leng Chan interests from which it brought them. He could not get what he paid for it for the purchase devalued the company.

But if his intention was to sell, as he now says he is prepared to, all of the stake, why did he venture into it in the first place? MCA went into the sale because Nanyang Press Holdings was held by one once aligned to the jailed former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim. The BN administration has been removing them as occasions arose, and the MCA was goaded into it on the understanding that Umno would not oppose it. It would not, but the MCA then thought the coast was clear when it was not.

Public debate

The Nanyang saga affirmed the widely-held suspicion that the MCA president acts not in the community's interest but the Umno president's. More than the loss of a voice, the community did not let go a chance to blacken Dr Ling for presuming that he could lead it because Umno wanted him to. Normal attempts to tell him the facts of life are impossible because he surrounds himself with sycophants and cronies to beat down any attempt.

When all is said and done, therefore, whether MCA was right in buying the Nanyang Press Holdings is irrelevant. It has provided an opportunity to bring his presidency into public debate without fearing the presidential wrath. He sidestepped other scandals and problems with ease because the community did not get involved: the RM1.2 billion in loans his son took; his refusal to step down as MCA president after he said he would; to mention just two.

Indeed, amidst this crisis, MCA Youth wants to limit the party president's term in office. A similar pressure builds in the other BN parties. Political parties in Malaysia insist upon geriatric leaders who stay on and refuse to leave. Every member of BN and several opposition parties are guilty of it. It causes them to lose ground, but BN's electoral dominance limits its impact.

But that cannot be assumed any more. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself worries that the MCA's mishap would redound upon BN's electoral chances in 2004. The BN's Malay hegemony is challenged. The Malay ground questions Umno's raison d'etre . Now the Chinese community MCA's.

A fine mess

A more responsive leader would have known what was in store when he bought the Nanyang Press. But he looks upon internal questioning as treachery. The fine antenna an open debate would have produced is missing. And Dr Ling steps into a fine mess.

Can the MCA survive this disaster? It could, if it could take the harsh decisions it must.

But can it? Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's call to the MCA not to wash dirty linen in public shows that when its president wants to have his way and would not listen to reason, the only way to force him to is to take the debate out into the open. As now.

More than that, it magnifies his faults to such a degree that reformists in the party talk of what must be done to re-attract its ground. That is what happens in the MCA now.

As for the Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press , it heads the way of its predecessors: The Malaya Tribune , The Tiger Standard , The Pinang Gazette , The Times of Malaya and other Nanyang Siang Paus and China Presses of the past.