A graduate of Royal Military College, Dr Ling Liong Sik would have read Sun Tzu's Art of War a required reading for all students of warfare strategies.

Sun Tzu wrote in what is widely regarded as the world's oldest military treatise that good generals first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then lay in wait for the opportunity of defeating the enemy.

For Ling, that opportunity came when Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, as head of Barisan Nasional, chastised members of the ruling coalition for their factional bickering at last week's supreme council meeting.

In particular, Mahathir referred to the Team A-Team B squabbles in the Chinese-based MCA.

The PM went on to disclose that MCA chief Ling has already tendered his resignation, perhaps inferring that the party's rebel faction led by rival leader Lim Ah Lek should cease its offensive against the embattled party president.

Ling a shrewd politician who first emerged as a stop-gap leader during MCA's 1985-6 leadership crisis but continued to remain at the helm of the party for 17 years knew the time had come for him to mount an assault.

When Mahathir after the three-hour BN meeting did not speak of Ling's resignation at his press conference, the MCA chief took it upon himself to announce it to the journalists who were there.

He has apparently done so without consulting his aides. Aside from his nemesis, deputy party leader Lim, and secretary-general Dr Ting Chew Peh, who is from Team A, no other MCA leaders were at the BN meeting.

That personal move was particularly astute. "To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself" (Sun Tzu).

Indeed, just days before the Ling's undated resignation was made known, rival party leader Lim had opened himself to attack by vowing to challenge the MCA chief come the party polls in 2005.

Putting in the spin

In making his quit letter public, Ling has put his critics on the defensive and won himself some breathing space to plan his next move.

Lim and his Team B faction will now be hard-pressed to demand Ling's resignation when Mahathir is still mulling whether to accept his quit offer, and this could take months.

To ensure that he has the upper hand, Ling marshalled the newspapers under his control, English-language daily Star , and more importantly, Chinese-language dailies Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press the newspapers bought by MCA two years ago to put a spin on the issue.

In news reports, editorials and commentaries, Lim was painted as the bad guy for forcing Ling's hand.

One of the Chinese dailies quoted an anonymous source, possibly from Team A, claiming that Mahathir's announcement of Ling's quit letter was 'engineered' by Lim, who had asked the PM to confirm rumours of the MCA chief's resignation during the BN supreme council meeting.

This was later denied by both Ling and Lim, but the damage was done.

In one fell swoop, Ling has made good of a rather bad situation.

For weeks, he had been under pressure from Umno leaders who wanted his blood for, among others, not taking decisive action against two party representatives for breaking BN's ranks in a vote on a controversial highway project at last November's Penang state assembly.

Ling can now tell his critics to 'go fly kite' since he has Mahathir's backing (read: the PM has not accepted his resignation, yet).

That Mahathir needs more time to decide is understandable the resignation will leave a hole in the cabinet, where Ling has been transport minister for almost two decades, as well as the leadership of a fractious MCA.

It is in the interest of the BN chief that stability is brought to the coalition's second-largest party before the next general election, due in December 2004, but expected much earlier.

Team B battle plan

What sparked the bickering between the two factions in MCA was Ling's dishonouring of the party's pre-1999 general election succession plan in which both Ling and Lim would step down and have their posts filled by their respective protgs.

To the chagrin of Lim who has since resigned from the cabinet, Ling had no intention of sticking to the pact and instead insisted on remaining as party leader, at least for another term.

But despite Ling coming out on top in this little skirmish, he knows he is still at a disadvantage.

Much has changed since the succession-plan deal three years ago. Umno, especially prime-minister-in-waiting Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is eager to see a Team B-led MCA, and now that the PM is on the way out, Abdullah's views count.

To complicate matters, Lim is no longer in the mood to go, or at least he has been persuaded to see through the crisis. Team B, backed by key Umno leaders, has a new plan.

It goes something like this: Pressure Ling to step down, deputy leader Lim takes over. The new president will then appoint senior vice-president Chua Jui Meng, who is with Team B, as No 2.

When Ling is dead and buried, it is expected that most of Team A will defect since MCA like most political parties in Malaysia survives on a patronage system.

After the next general election, Lim will step down and Chua will be elevated as party leader. He, in turn, will appoint Lim's protg, Chan Kong Choy, as deputy party chief.

And when the party polls are held in two years' time, there will be a relatively credible effort in cleaning the membership rolls to ensure that everyone respects the result of any future leadership contest.

Stability will then return to MCA and its members will live happily together until the next leadership tussle.

Given this, Ling is fast running out of time, and options.

Ironically for Ling who had spurned the original succession plan, it is now in the interest of the faction he leads that he leaves with Lim together. That will throw a spanner in the works of Team B's plan since Lim, as deputy president, is the only person who can constitutionally replace Ling without a messy party polls.

But don't write off Ling just yet. After all, he still has the numbers in the party and the financial backing of major Chinese business tycoons.

His next move, when it comes, will again be swift. As Sun Tzu says: "Attack the enemy where he is unprepared, and appear where you are least expected."