MIC polls deferred, calls for change grow louder

MIC - which was dealt a crushing blow in the March 2008 polls - has postponed the elections for its top posts, except that of president, to next September.

According to Bernama , the decision to push back the polls from June to September was made earlier this month during a central working committee (CWC) meeting. The CWC is MIC’s highest decision-making body.

However, the report which quoted sources stated that the election for the post of president would go on as scheduled in late February next year.

MIC president S Samy Vellu - who has been helming the party since 1979 and has retained the post for 10 consecutive terms - is the only candidate to have announced his intention to contest the top post so far.

Tamil newspapers earlier this month quoted him as saying he would hand over the MIC to whosoever was picked as the deputy president at the party polls this time around.

Although the last party elections were held in June 2006, the MIC constitution allows for the CWC to defer the election of top office-bearers for a period of 18 months. The nearly 1,500 divisional delegates would pick a deputy president, three vice-presidents and 23 CWC members.

MIC has a different system in electing its national office-bearers compared to other parties. The presidential election is held at least three months ahead of the elections for the other posts. The president, in the case of a contest, is picked by branch office-bearers while other national leaders are picked by divisional delegates.

According to Bernama , all eyes are on the race for deputy presidency as observers feel that the person who fills this post would lead the 650,000-member MIC into the next general election.

"Another school of thought is of the opinion that Samy Vellu might decline going for the presidency if he can strike a deal among the big players in MIC politics before February next year. But this is unlikely to happen taking into account the political ambitions of a few in the upper hierarchy of the party," added the report.

'Many want Samy to leave'

Meanwhile, party veteran and MIC treasurer-general M Mahalingam was quoted as saying that the situation in the party is unclear.

"Nobody knows what is going on in his (Samy Vellu's) mind. It is all a guessing game. Only time will tell who he would endorse as his deputy, if he ever endorses anyone," he said.

The report also stated that many in the party tacitly prefer Samy Vellu to leave and let democracy take its course.

"This is, however, rebutted by the 72-year-old leader, who says he does not want to leave the party in disarray due to political infighting after his departure as the president."

MIC, like other Barisan Nasional component parties in the peninsula, suffered a bruising defeat in the March 8 general election when only three of its nine parliamentary candidates won.

The three are Dr S. Subramaniam (Segamat), who is the human resource minister and MIC secretary-general M. Saravanan (Tapah), the federal territories deputy minister and MIC information chief and S K Devamany (Cameron Highlands), deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department.

Subramanian, noted the report, is seen as potential deputy president material while others expected by party observers to join the contest for number two are S Subramaniam, the former deputy president, G Palanivel, the incumbent deputy president and S Sothinathan, an incumbent vice-president.

"It is learnt that Subramaniam will only contest the post with the blessings of Samy Vellu while the other three are playing a wait-and-see game."

Following his defeat in the March 8 polls, the MIC president had announced that he would not take sides as far as the deputy presidency is concerned.

It has been the norm in the party, over the last two decades, for the MIC chief to come up with a list of preferred candidates for national positions and this practice, some claim, had "killed democracy" in the party.

"At the last elections, he proposed that Palanivel be given the endorsement for deputy president to overthrow Subramaniam who had served as the party No 2 for 27 years prior to the 2006 party election defeat," stated the report.

In a bid to "strengthen" the party, Samy Vellu has since patched up with Subramaniam, who had been a thorn in Samy Vellu's flesh since the mid-1970s, and the "deal" was that the MIC chief would not take sides at the next party polls especially in the tussle for deputy president.

New leaders on the rise

"He (Samy Vellu) created Palanivel to kill off Subramaniam (known in party circles as Subra). Now he has both of them on each side. On top of that, he has Dr Subramaniam, who is a full minister. To add icing to the cake, Sothinathan ( left ), who garnered the highest number of votes in the veep race the last time around, is knocking at the door of the deputy presidency.

"But one cannot discount other candidates, like Saravanan ( left ) who is seen by the community as a breath of fresh air. Young leaders like him and several others are breaking into the ranks. They too have ideas which they feel are relevant to the younger generation and current political trend in the country," said S Ananthan, the MIC president's former political secretary.

However, Ananthan argued that it is time for the MIC to change, not only through a rebranding exercise but also from inside, meaning changing the leadership.

"If you see, the entire line-up, may it be Samy Vellu, Subra, Palanivel or even Sothi(nathan), are old names. The general election results told MIC a lot of things but they should learn lessons instead of continuing with their old ways. Putting up a list of preferred candidates will destroy the party.

"Indians want to support MIC but the party itself should reinvent the way it operates. It has to offer something to the Indians. That is the difficult part. Indians want the party to show that it has changed for the good," Ananthan said.