I refer to the Malaysiakini report 'MCA leaderless, idea-less and impotent' .

I wish to congratulate all those MCA delegates who attended the party's EGM recently and depicted their wisdom by rejecting both the top two leaders of the party for their respective lack of credibility.

Many people have expressed their worries about the future of MCA, which I think is quite naive because as far as the Chinese community is concerned ,the MCA is only one of the eggs in their political basket.

Thus the trouble in MCA does not worry them one bit because if the party were to collapse, there is Gerakan and the DAP and even PKR which will gladly accept them. This is the difference between MCA and Umno which owes its so-called strength and unity to patronage politics.

There is no way that Umno delegates would agree to an EGM to deliberate on such motions like how the MCA delegates did, particularly the non-confidence motion against party president Ong Tee Keat.

Due to its patronage politics, Umno delegates would quickly rally behind their party president who, hitherto, has always been the prime minister of the country and therefore is in a position to grant favours.

On the other hand, the MCA delegates, who are fairly financially well-off, would vote solely on their own assessment and conscience on whether their existing leaders can really bring about unity within the party and fight for Chinese interests in the Barisan Nasional such as the Chinese schools, the Chinese language, etc.

Their votes can never be bought.

This is also true for Umno delegates but only in the 60s and early 70s when Umno delegates quite truly represented their respective divisions unlike today where even an Umno branch leader is said to be a big businessman living in the Klang Valley.

The Umno delegates’ votes too do not really represent the wishes of their own branch members because quite often, their votes would also take into account their business interests.

While Umno is still grappling with changes in their party constitution to bring about a more democrtically-elected party leaders free from money politics, the MCA has already decided that all party leaders should not serve not more than two terms.

Will Umno delegates insist on this? Fat chance. If possible, every Umno leader wants to stay up there for as long as possible.