The MIC's election results on Saturday show three clear trends that are a step backward in time.

While those elected say the results, almost 100 per cent in favour of party president Samy Vellu, show that the party is strong and united, it also show the absence of alternative views competing in dynamic tandem with the official line.

Instead of a discourse, the intellectual space in the MIC is now dominated by a single, autocratic monologue.

First, the result has killed dissent within the party's top policy-making body. Delegates elected Samy's choices for the three vice-president's post and 23 Central Working Committee seats, almost to the man, and with overwhelming majorities.

Challenger and incumbent vice-president Muthupalaniappan only polled 586 votes, losing by a huge majority.

Another challenger, former Kapar MP Dr Leela Rama, wanted to make history as the first woman vice-president but was rejected outright by the voters, most of them males. She received only 385 votes out of a potential 1,500. Besides all the people elected on Saturday were males. So much for gender sensitivity in the MIC.

Second, the results have planted the seeds of petty rivalries between second echelon leaders.

Incumbent vice-president G. Palanivel, who scored the highest votes in the 1997 election and soon thereafter regarded as Samy Vellu's protg, slipped to second position on Saturday. He polled 1,072 votes as against S.Veerasingam from Perak who received 1,077 votes. K.S. Nijhar came in a close third with 984.

It is only a matter of five votes more for Veerasingam, a kinsman of Samy Vellu, but for the rank and file it could mean that another contender for the title of "protg" had arrived. Palanivel was tipped to take on S.Subramaniam for the deputy president's post. This is Palanivel's first "bitter pill" since his meteoric rise after switching from press secretary to MP in 1990.

Veerasingam is a soft spoken and likable fellow, always avoiding controversies and totally unadventurous. He would make an ideal "Yes, sir" deputy for Samy if the president is tired of Subramaniam, his deputy for two decades.

(In a well-rehearsed and predictable charade, both Samy and Subramaniam were returned unopposed, as they had been for most of the two decades they have been together).