In year 2000, Gary Hamel published his millennium masterpiece ‘Leading the Revolution’. Unlike his earlier bestseller, ‘Competing For the Future’ co-authored with CK Prahalad, which was about how to stay ahead of competition in the future, this millennium masterpiece called for the constant review of business concepts by identifying what to change - or, what, when and how to revolutionise for sustainability.

Today, MCA has the honour to have both the prime minister and the deputy prime minister to author the blue-print of its revolution. Revolution? Can it be otherwise? The outcome is expected to be a fundamental change in power inside the party and it will happen within a relatively short period of time.

Like the French revolution in the 18th century, modern day revolutions also bring about radical changes to the current situations such as in the digital revolution, the marketing revolution, the dance and arts revolutions and the like. Leiden and Schmitt (1968) in their writing on revolutions in the modern world, identified three stages, viz .

Stage 1: Undermining of old ideology followed by breakdown of old loyalties and the expulsion of old ruling elites

Stage 2: The construction of an alternative for replacement, and

Stage 3: Increased wish for return to normalcy

The MCA debacle has a similar pattern. It had its origin from a legacy passed down from the previous president. Whoever who masterminded the taping of the tryst did not have a strategy to put an end to the ‘actor’s’ political career. A complaint was brought before the party’s disciplinary board which caused the ‘actor’ to expelled, thus removal of his official position in the party.

He called for an EGM of the central delegates to reinstate him. One of three resolutions of the EGM was to cast a vote of no-confidence on the current president. The outcome of this vote of no-confidence took the party into the second phase of the revolution.

Phase 1: To oust the ‘immoral’ deputy president.

The party disciplinary committee (DC) expelled him from the party. However, the then Presidential Council overturned the committee’s decision and reduced it to suspension. This caused the entire disciplinary committee to resign en bloc as the committee deemed it had lost its power in upholding discipline in the party.

The subsequent EGM and the aggrieved party’s appeal to the Home Affairs Minister caused the party to be ticked off by the Registrar of Society that the party’s action of vacating the position of deputy president was ultra vires the party’s constitution.

Article 35 of the party constitution clearly laid dow the requirement of two-thirds of delegates being present and voting at a general assembly for the removal of party officials. Faced with such a development, the president and the deputy president joined hands to work together towards the uniting the party, which indeed, is the right thing to do.

Phase 2: One of the vice-presidents, the head of MCA Youth, and the head of Wanita MCA appeared to have difficulties in making leadership level decisions. Prior to the Oct 10 EGM, group photos appeared in all major newspapers and in the online media showing all the three ‘actors’ standing behind the president and declaring that they would collectively resign should the president lose in the ‘no-confidence’ vote.

The president lost by a thin margin of 14 votes - which analysts reasoned could only happen if there was betrayal from within the president’s camp. Indeed, there was.

What are the significant differences in the two phases of the revolution?

i. Quality of the actors: In Phase 1, the challenger only wanted re-instatement as deputy president. Anyone reading the intellect of this challenger would have expected him to be aware of Article 35 of the party constitution. He had been rightly advised to go through the motions of appeal for reinstatement. He complied by the rules of the game and he was rightfully reinstated.

ii. Credibility of the trio: They betrayed the president’s and public trust. They were not honest when they told the public they would act collectively as members of the central committee. There were also other occasions when declarations for resignation were made but they never obliged.

iii. The decision-making ability of the trio was highly questionable. One day they objected to another EGM only to later declare the new EGM would be their life line. One day they appeared together with the president to tell the whole world about a new ‘Unity Plan’. Next day they denied they had no knowledge of the plan.

The deputy president openly asked the leader to make clear what he wanted as one day it was the president’s position and the next it was the position of deputy president. Such misery of indecisiveness does not augur well for the trio who claimed a large following.

iv. Personal virtue and disrespect of party code of conduct and discipline: This Code is available at the party’s website to remind the nearly one million members of their duties, responsibilities and obligations. Despite verbal warnings from party elders, sadly, the trio chose to challenge it. Outsiders look upon such behavior was as unbecoming of Chinese officials in the government.

http://www.mca.org.my/

Certain quarters felt that they should first relinquish their positions in the government and in the Senate and then only come back to challenge the party leadership. Of special reference was the despicable behavior of the head of Wanita (one of the trio) who lost miserably in the previous general election.

The president put her up as a senator in order that she could hold the deputy minister’s position and now she leads in the rebellion against the party and the president. And she continues to benefit from those government positions.

v. Malicious allegations: The trio showed complete disregard for party processes and procedures. The trio chose to ignore them and instead indulged in inciting public sentiments. They incited members to carry out public demonstrations in the form of candlelight vigils claiming ‘Death of democracy in MCA’.

The police had to be called in to maintain order. The trio call themselves the ‘MCA Integrity Restoration’ group. That is a serious allegation against the party.

vi. Their immaturity in thinking became evident when hurling accusations against individuals reflecting instead on their personal inability to lead. They openly called the president ‘dictator’ and put up banners bearing slogans such as ‘Bloody Resolutions – What Unity Plan?’ when they campaigned. They even taunted other Chinese and non-Chinese associations to join in the fray.

vii. Rejection of presidential power entrenched in the party constitution. In the case of changing the composition of the Presidential Council, many considered it a wise move. The en bloc resignation of the party’s disciplinary committee was evidenced that the council with the previous composition, had wrongly advised the president causing him such embarrassment.

MCA is the only single-race political party in Malaysia representing the Chinese. The president of the party is an institution as he carries direct representation of the close to a million members, and also indirect representation of another six million Chinese Malaysians who are not members of MCA.

The party had never meant its president to be a mere puppet while others call the shots. Getting to the position of president is a long and tedious task after having undergone much training, trials and tribulations. Unless he resigns on his own, there are processes and procedures provided inside the party constitution to remove him from office. Street politics is definitely not one of them.

From the above and from the lopsided reporting by the media, it was evident that the president had been very tolerant of this band of activists by not taking disciplinary action against each and everyone of them for their actions and slanderous accusations. Public opinion, however, has made it clear: enough is enough.

Hamel professed that there was no correlation between size and profitability. In the business environment, that is. Unfortunately, if the result of this MCA revolution were to shake the foundation of the party, the outcomes can be far-reaching. They will penetrate deeply into the fabric of society and the effects will be reverberate until the next general election.

While Hamel encouraged ‘bumbling activists’ to explore innovations, he did lay down certain design rules to be followed in order for revolutions to produce positive outcomes. He advised those heading political models to learn from those ‘grey-haired revolutionaries who have repeatedly turned themselves inside out and their organisations upside down’ in their search for improvements.

Now, both the prime minister and the deputy prime minister will author the blueprint for peace. But what will be the outcome of this revolution? Can there be expectation of normalcy?