news analysis

Although we may not be very interested in the factional struggles and clashes of personalities among leaders and supporters of MCA, some of the public themes they have developed to rally support or discredit their opponents deserve national attention, reflection and discourse.

For example, one of the vice presidents 'Jimmy' Chua Jui Ming, who is also the Health Minister, has come out quite explicitly with the theme that MCA should not involve itself in commercial business because as a political party, it should instead concentrate or specialise in the political management of the affairs of the nation.

In his own words, the second largest component party of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) should not be identified or perceived as "MCA Sdn Bhd" or a party of " tow kays " (big Chinese businessmen).

It is a bold idea. It is even bolder for a vice-president of a party traditionally supported mainly by businessmen to raise the issue, and to challenge the status quo, in such a well-defined manner.

For those who remember modern history well enough, MCA started its commercial business as early as its founding days in 1949 through the selling of 'welfare' lottery, which was later banned by the British colonial administration in 1953.

Criminal convictions

However, the theme is not really novel. It had already been raised in the early and mid-80s by a powerful faction of MCA headed by the then acting president, Dr Neo Yee Pan who was formerly a physics lecturer with the University Malaya.

The idealistic but hot-tempered Neo first sacked the party leaders who propagated and practiced political business, led by self-made tycoon Tan Koon Swan and included among the others Dr Ling Liong Sik.

Then, the situation took a dramatic turn. Tan and his faction fought back in an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the party and got reinstated as members of the party. Tan became the president and when his supporters came into the party's leadership in 1985, Neo and his followers were purged.

However, Tan's leadership did not last long. In late 1985, Tan was arrested, and later charged, convicted and jailed for two years by the Singaporean authorities on fifteen counts of criminal breach of trust, cheating and fraud in business deals.

On his return to Malaysia after his release from jail in Singapore, Tan was charged with misusing the funds of a MCA investment arm, Multi-Purpose Holdings (MPH) to bail out the Singapore-based company Pan-Electric (Pan-El) which he owned.

Cooperatives saga

The year 1986 was also bad for MCA's political businesses on another front. On Aug 8, 1986, just five days after the 1986 general elections, the then Finance minister Daim Zainuddin issued a statement announcing that Bank Negara had frozen the assets of 23 deposit-taking cooperatives and 136 directors and officials, pending investigation.

Many of those directors and officials were prominent MCA leaders, including president Tan, secretary-general Ng Cheng Kiat, Youth leader Kee Yong Wee, organising secretary Wang Choon Wing and Women's wing chief Teng Gaik Kwan. Wang and Kee were later charged, convicted and jailed for criminal breach of trust.

The incident which is now remembered by the older generation of Chinese as the 'Deposit-taking Cooperatives Scandal' made MCA the popular object of hatred and contempt in the Chinese community because the life savings of thousands of Chinese lower-middle and working classes, including many semi-illiterate Chinese womenfolk and elderly citizens in small towns and villages, were immobilised for a long period of time as the result of the freeze imposed by Bank Negara.

They felt cheated and betrayed by their economic 'saviours' who persuaded them to part with their savings and cash for the greater cause of 'Chinese unity and self-strengthening'.

According to a June 14 news report in the Nanyang Siang Pau , Chua was quoted as recalling that MCA was once so badly indebted in the late 80s that its headquarters, Wisma MCA, was nearly sold off to service the debts.

In the same report, Chua was quoted as revealing that Ling once promised 'to separate politics from business'. Seen from a historical perspective, Chua seems to be right in his recently articulated public position.

A bridge and ladder

However, the public position of Chua, while attractive and appealing to some members of the rank and file and the Chinese community, is not without opponents within the party.

At the lowest intellectual level, Chua would almost certainly be decried as a hypocrite because he himself is a trustee of the party's investment arm, namely Huaren Management Sdn Bhd.

If Chua opposes 'mixing politics with business', why then does he avail himself to sit on the board of trustees of Huaren Management Sdn Bhd, knowing fully well that it is the investment arm of the party? Chua needs to urgently address this question.

At a slightly higher intellectual level, party leaders and full-time staff without professional qualifications could charge that while professionally qualified leaders like Chua could earn independent income, they should not be that selfish to deny others and the party the opportunity to generate income and wealth to build, manage and develop the party's organisation and strength.

This sentiment has been rather prevalent among the middle-ranking and local leaders who see MCA as bridge and ladder in the business world. Typically, these leaders have no professional qualifications, mainstream skills or knowledge of wealth creation for them to earn independent income. Chua and other anti-Ling leaders would ignore this sentiment at their own peril.

At the more ideological level, Chua would probably be insinuated or charged in whisper campaigns mounted by Ling's loyalists as a 'traitor to the Chinese race' because it has always been said or believed by supporters of MCA's political business that the party's businesses are essential for the protection of Chinese interests against those of another race.

Already, Ling's loyalists like propaganda chief and former deputy Finance minister Wong See Wah and vice-president-cum-Human Resources minister Dr Fong Chan Onn have claimed in statements made in Chinese-language newspapers and in speeches at closed-door briefings that had MCA not taken over Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press , the two newspapers could have fallen into the hands "bumiputra interests". But thus far, no details on this claim have surfaced.

Equalising factor

Of course, this 'Chinese self-help through MCA' theme, like Chua's position on the separation of politics and business, is not new at all.

In the late '70s, a former president of MCA, Lee San Choon, had already developed the argument that the MCA had to engage in commercial businesses with Chinese capital to countervail Umno's New Economic Policy (NEP) which he claimed to be in favour of the Malays to the detriment of the Chinese.

How this theme will be presented and debated in the context of the factional struggles and clashes of personalities and how the Chinese community reacts to the debate and what would be the impact on it and Malaysian politics should be watched closely and carefully from now until the party's election next year.

JAMES WONG WING ON is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and also a leading Mandarin-Chinese opinion writer and columnist. He read economics and political science at the Monash University in Australia from 1983 to1986.