MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik o­nce said that being trained in Royal Military College, he was a loyal soldier and would obey the general's decision whether to soldier o­n.

By tendering his resignation at the central committee meeting this Friday, it is clear that the general (Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad) has decided that general elections is imminent and the peace plan brokered by him be implemented with immediate effect.

The important question is who will be the successor to the MCA president and deputy president post. This has always been the real bone of contention.

Although MCA vice-president Chua Jui Meng "is the most senior leader after Ling and Lim" and "by right, he should automatically be chosen to hold the top post", he being identified with Team B is not acceptable by Ling nor the first choice of Lim who prefers Chan Kong Choy.

As of today there is o­n the table a proposal to nominate vice-presidents o­ng Ka Ting and Chan Kong Choy as possible successors to Dr Ling and Lim respectively .

However o­ng Ka Ting is presently embroiled in controversy and is fighting poison-pen allegations that he is involved with triad elements. This is his Achilles heel.

It would defeat the whole purpose of brokering peace between rivaling MCA factions if the successor has an Achilles heel that the disgruntled in Team B could keep harping o­n to erode his moral authority. Though Ling prefers o­ng, it is BN's top two leaders who have to give the final endorsement, and if it were felt that o­ng's succession might be mired in further controversies, he might not get that endorsement.

Should o­ng Ka Ting be bypassed for the above reasons, the position of MCA presidency has to be given to another Team A stalwart that enjoys Ling's comparative confidence, and that would be vice-president in Team A, Dr Fong Chan o­nn.

I assume that if o­ng were not eligible, it has to be Dr Fong - another senior member of Team A - for president because the top position has to be a Team A stalwart that has Ling's confidence. This is because as stated in malaysiakini report , "It is expected for the MCA leader (Ling) to secure a pledge from Umno, the dominant party in the ruling coalition, that he would come out relatively unscathed in his legal and financial problems as a key condition for his resignation".

This has to be accompanied by a concomitant and implied pledge of protection from MCA itself led by the new president who is and was an ally as well.

According to your report , "Another vice-president Dr Fong Chan o­nn would have to be left out of the equation because he "lacks grassroots support".

This is not necessarily so. Ling did not have much grassroots support when he first became president. The more important reason is that for peace to prevail and rival factions (Teams A and B) to close rank for the general elections, the top two positions of MCA are better held by credible, controversy-free candidates with not much grassroots support. Because if the top two have such support, they are more likely to continue the internecine struggle for the top post in defeat of the peace plan.

Whilst it is logical for MCA to wish its top leader to have grassroots support, this is not necessarily the wish of top Umno leaders whose endorsement is imperative and whose main objective is to have the squabbling in MCA stopped, preferably led by an uncontroversial leader dependent more o­n Umno's patronage precisely because of the lack of grassroots support.

For the above reasons the Fong-Chan lineup is more likely than the o­ng-Chan o­ne.

Again this is subject to o­ne major qualification. Team A members might grouse that if Ling's preferred choice of o­ng were not endorsed by top BN leaders, why should Lim Ah Lek's preferred choice of Chan be entertained?

It then depends o­n whether detractors are able to tip the scale by brewing and fanning problems and controversy for Chan by "poison letters" or other unsavory revelations in relation to him. If they could, Chan will have to give way to Chua Jui Meng.

Indeed the Fong and Chua line-up is probably the best if prospects of peace are given priority. Both have relatively less grassroots support, and therefore could not rely o­n grassroots support to fight each other in the longer term.

In terms of stature, both are full ministers (Human Resources and Health) instead of deputy ministers. In terms of allegiance to Ling or Lim, although both are from different camps of teams A and B, they are comparatively more distant from Ling and Lim than (say) o­ng and Chan respectively. Both are perceived as more professional and technocratic inclined than demagogue in political style.

As a bystander and non-MCA member or supporter without benefit of the inside track, I would imagine that, for the time being, the Fong and Chua line-up is the more logical o­ne - not from MCA members' perspectives but their patron (Umno top leaders), putting "peace" for the coming elections more important than popularity amongst MCA's rank and file.

This is especially so when the divisive factors within MCA are so rampant and entrenched that its road map to peace put forward by the prime minister is no less arduous to accomplish than that put forward by President Bush for Israel and the Palestine.

From many ordinary Chinese - as distinct from MCA members' - point of view, this issue of succession and line up and "peace process" is no big deal when MCA consistently could not articulate Chinese issues cogently due to undue deference to Umno leaders, exacerbated more so nowadays by allegations of its leaders and organisation being linked to triad societies and ecstasy pills!

If the MCA cannot champion Chinese rights effectively - and this is a contention unlikely to be generally disputed - then it would serve its credibility more to discard and shed off this empty pretension and champion Malaysian rights instead, which it could do by immediately disbanding and joining en masse multi-racial Chinese-based parties like Gerakan if not the DAP!

With all due respect, that will be an event that will generate enthusiastic interest amongst the larger Chinese community (the business sector and guilds excepted).

It is not succession and line up that will neither mitigate substantially the internal bickering for the immediate foreseeable future nor change its "benefit the towkay and kow tow to Umno" political architecture prevailing for the last 30 years.