LETTER | Dear MCA leaders, please take a look at the state of our country, with eyes and ears wide open.

Don’t you think we desperately need a good, strong opposition so that the people can benefit from the politics of parties competing on policies rather than on excrement-stirring and fire-starting?

Doesn’t this present a great opportunity for you to recover your pride and place after the humiliations you suffered in the last few general elections? You need to stop running around like chicken licken.

For a party that claims to represent the Chinese, you don’t seem to know how to connect with them. The main concerns of this community have been constants in their pre-occupations forever, it would seem. If you still don’t know, please let me clue you in.

There are three things you need to do to regain the support of the race you claim to represent.

1. Lead the fight for higher education standards

This need not be about fighting for Chinese schools. A fair number of Chinese parents have no special fondness for vernacular schools. Perhaps they’re not so proficient in the language themselves, or they may disagree with the notorious homework overloads.

The reason they (and an increasing number of non-Chinese parents) choose Chinese schools is the reasonable standard of education they maintain without charging the exorbitant fees that private institutions do.

National schools staffed with competent teachers running a strong and relevant curriculum can properly prepare students for adulthood as well as or better than any vernacular school.

The proof is the generations of successful leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, and tradesmen who excel in their respective fields without having stepped foot in a vernacular school.

This is an opportunity for the MCA to rise above “vernacular school” politics and campaign for national unity through improved education standards. Shout out loud and show the voting public what you stand for. Do you know how? (Tip: Since you’re not in government, you don’t even have to deliver. You just need to keep the discussion going.)

2. Improve the business environment for SMEs

The Chinese community has a reputation for being business-minded and driven to make money. I prefer to think of it as wanting to improve their status in life for the benefit of their children.

The community has been successful in building small- and medium-sized enterprises with relatively little government help or intervention. So much so that SMEs have become important contributors to the national economy.

According to figures published by the economic census of 2016, SMEs contributed 36.6 percent of our GDP, 18.6 percent of exports, and 65.3 percent of employment while 98.5 percent of business establishments in Malaysia were SMEs and 20.6 percent of them were owned by women.

This is another wonderful opportunity for you to make your voice heard and your presence felt in an area of national importance with the difference that this is in the private sector where you can make a tangible difference.

Help start-ups, provide business training and consultations, give advice on handling official procedures, organise conferences on commercial opportunities in the digital economy. But don’t limit this to party members or any one race.

Rise above partisanship. Promote your achievements to the digital media. Remember that SMEs contribute over 60 percent of employment, offering a rich bank of voters. We will be grateful, I promise.

3. Stop attacking DAP

The one thing you must stop doing is attacking the DAP. Most times you are in the news, ýou are reported condemning the DAP for taking positions you yourself didn’t have the courage to stand up for when you were in government.

It would seem that the MCA party no longer has any reason of its own for existence. You are a party defined by the DAP, in other words, totally irrelevant.

Criticising, on hypocritical grounds, the party which won the sweeping majority of Chinese votes has the same effect on the MCA as cutting your own wrists. Losers do this, not leaders who’re elected to guide the tribe back from the wilderness.

Any savvy salesman can tell you what happens when you run down your prospective customer's supplier i.e. your competitor. You're telling the voter he's an idiot who should know better. The salesman risks losing his job if he alienates potential customers.

But in the MCA, you’re the boss and you’re under no such threat unless you consider voter rejection a dreadful outcome.

But there could be method in your madness. Perhaps by your current seemingly thoughtless actions, you aim to drive the membership down to near party extinction.

Finally, you’re left with a small band of like-minded position-seekers sitting on billions worth of assets, rubbing your hands in glee.

Please send me a membership form quick. I want in.

Oh yes. As long as you decide to remain a race-based party, isn’t it about time you changed your name to the CMA? We’re almost into 2019 and the young don’t know how to be Malaysian Chinese.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.