news analysis

Umno and the Barisan Nasional (BN) president Dr Mahathir Mohamad opened the BN convention in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday calling on the component parties to adopt new approaches with a speech teeming with old themes such as attacking the Barisan Alternatif (BA) as a 'marriage of convenience' etc.

That BA is a marriage of convenience is really nothing new as evidenced by the fact that a New Straits Times journalist had written about it at least a day earlier in a Page 2 article under the headline 'Pas and DAP union has all the appearance of a shotgun marriage'.

The greatest irony is that the BN chairman was speaking about the marriages of convenience of others when his own Umno and MCA were, and still are, factionalised like broken families.

MCA and Gerakan have also been fighting openly following the last general elections over issues like the position of Chief Minister in Penang, Gerakan state assemblymen crossing over to MCA, the political loyalty of the president of the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Suqiu and the takeover of two Chinese-language newspapers by the Ling faction in MCA.

It is also now a public knowledge that there are at least two major factions in the MCA fighting each other both openly and secretly in the run-up to the party elections next year.

Both factions are courting the indirect support of Mahathir, deputy prime minister Abdullah Badawi and the different factions in Umno.

It can be reasonably speculated that while Mahathir will continue to tolerate Ling and his faction for the sake of the stability of BN, his successor and future top leaders of Umno are more inclined to empathise with Lim Ah Lek, Chua Chui Ming and Ong Tee Keat who could be made less threatening partners in the post-Mahathir BN.

Opposite views

If this analysis of the dichotomy of present and future interests of Umno leaders is correct, then Gerakan is also competing with the MCA's dissident faction to court the support of Mahathir's successor and future Umno heavyweights.

However, credit is still due to MCA because unlike Umno under the leadership of Mahathir, MCA's dissidents can still speak up freely and openly as during the party's recent Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) where the Number 2 in the party openly questioned the decision made by the Number 1.

MCA Youth chief Ong Tee Keat confronted his president in Wisma MCA with a resolution opposing the decision made by the Ling Liong Sik faction to buy the Nanyang Press Holdings. None of the dissidents in MCA are branded as 'foreign agents' or 'homosexuals'.

The seemingly calm and united Gerakan, too, is also widely speculated in the Chinese community to be facing a major power struggle between its Penang Chief Minister, Dr Koh Tsu Koon who is Penang-based and the party's deputy president Kerk Choo Ting who is Perak-based, in the event of the retirement of party president Dr Lim Keng Yaik.

Top Gerakan leaders like president Lim and a central committee member Dr Toh Kin Woon, who is a Penang state government exco member, are openly known to hold diametrically opposite views on the Internal Security Act (ISA) and other human rights issues.

On the Indian Malaysian front, MIC under S Samy Vellu is facing subtle challenges from another Indian-based party within the BN, namely the People's Progressive Party (PPP) under M Kayveas.

MIC is also blocking the application of the Indian Progressive Front (IPF) to join the BN. IPF is led by a former MIC member and current anti-Samy Vellu dissident, MG Pandithan.

Major splits

At this point, three ideological questions can be posed to Umno, MCA, MIC and Gerakan.

One, on what basis does Umno, which propagate and defends what it calls 'Malay Dominance' co-operate with MCA and MIC, which claim to fight for the rights of the Chinese and Indians, and with Gerakan which claims to be multiethnic and fighting for a multiethnic democracy?

Two, on what basis does Gerakan, which claims to be multiethnic, compete with MCA for Chinese support and resources?

Three, on what basis does Gerakan, whose many leaders and members are anti-ISA, continue to cooperate with Umno, MCA and MIC which enacted the Internal Security Act in 1960 and still defend its use today?

Umno itself has been factionalised since Mahathir came to power in 1981. First, there was the sudden resignation of his first deputy Musa Hitam who is now the chairman of the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam).

Then there was the major split between Team A and Team B, resulting in the de-registration of the Umno the founding of the Umno Baru in 1988.

After the attempt of the late Tunku Abdul Rahman to register a party named Umno Malaysia, Team B leaders like Tengku Razaleigh and Rais Yatim formed the Semangat 46. Semangat 46 has since been disbanded. In 1998, Mahathir purged the Umno Baru of his third deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, who was later arrested

In fact, Mahathir's own circle of confidants have also split, as evidenced by the recent resignation of Daim Zainuddin as Umno treasurer and the Finance Minister.

Thus, we can see that the many marriages and cross-marriages within the BN are not as harmonious, stable and happy as they appear to be in the fairy tales of the mainstream media.

JAMES WONG WING ON, is a former Member of Parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew , he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.