The sudden, unexpected and even 'mysterious' resignation of Lee San Choon from MCA presidency and the government in April 1983 first fuelled intense speculation on the relationship between MCA and Umno under the new leadership of Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Only in his late 40s then, Lee had just led the party to new heights in the 1982 general elections. Besides, he had also built a strong organisation which most of the lower middle class Chinese Malaysians could identify with.
According to historian Heng Pek Koon, one speculation was that Lee could not work with Mahathir. The speculation was not without basis.
Lee's political programmes and strategies for MCA might have been perceived to be excessively 'racial' or 'chauvinistic' by Umno, especially when under the leadership of Mahatir a fervent Malay nationalist.
Under Lee, MCA had built up not only the party organisation, but also a gamut of auxiliary educational and financial institutions that were intended to offset the adverse impacts of the New Economic Policy (NEP) on the Chinese.
Moreover, at the time, many Chinese Malaysians were still wary of Mahathir for what they regarded as his 'extremist' views on the Malay-Chinese relationships as contained in his book The Malay Dilemma .
In the 1969 general elections, Chinese Malaysians in Mahathir's constituency in Kedah even voted for a PAS candidate who was seen as more 'moderate' than the former.
In any case, Lee passed the presidency to Dr Neo Yee Pan who was a former physics lecturer with Universiti Malaya.
Umno's choice
Unlike Lee and his supporters, Neo opposed the 'fusion' of political and economic powers in MCA. He advocated a new strategy of "separating politics from business".
There was therefore the speculation that, like Tan Siew Sin and Michael Chen, Neo was 'Umno's choice' for MCA.
The economic and financial interests in MCA, led and symbolised by self-made millionaire Tan Koon Swan, thus went all out to oppose Neo and his supporters.
For Tan and his supporters, including Dr Ling Liong Sik, Lee Kim Sai, Wong Mook Leong, Kee Yong Wee and Wang Choon Wing, separating politics from business would weaken not only MCA, but the Chinese community as a whole in the context of an Umno-dominated government and polity.
The opposition aimed at preventing Neo from consolidating his position as the acting president and becoming an elected president of MCA.
From 1983 to 1986, the two great factions of MCA fought out their 'wars' openly by resorting to court injunctions, extraordinary meetings and the creation of 'phantom' members.
At one point, Neo sacked 14 top leaders, including Tan Kwoon Swan, Dr Ling Liong Sik, Lee Kim Sai, Wong Mook Leong, Wang Choon Wing and Kee Yong Wee.
However, the courts later ruled the expulsion as illegal and unconstitutional.
The 14 were re-instated and continued to fight Neo with renewed vigour and increased bitterness.
In 1986, Tan Kwoon Swan was elected president and most of his supporters were also victorious in ousting Neo's followers.
Tan then led MCA to fight the 1986 general elections amid nursing the wounds of a power struggle, economic recession, as well as financial troubles of MCA-related businesses.
MCA lost badly to DAP which saw the number of its parliamentary seats soar from nine in 1982 to 24 in 1986. Correspondingly, MCA's seats dropped from 24 to 17.
However, Tan did not last very long. Soon after the 1986 general elections, he was arrested, tried, convicted and jailed for criminal breach of trust in Singapore involving misappropriation of funds of MCA-linked companies in order to save his own company.
Many of his high-profile supporters, like Wang Choon Wing and Kee Yoon Hui were also arrested, tried, convicted and jailed for similar offences.
Twenty-four deposit-taking cooperatives linked and managed by MCA leaders were suspended and their funds frozen by Bank Negara for investigation into corruption and criminal breach of trust.
Thousands of ordinary Chinese Malaysians, from the working and lower middle classes, suffered because their savings were immobilised for a long period of time amid severe economic recession and massive unemployment. Demonstrations against MCA were held to demand accountability.
MCA was so impoverished financially that it nearly was forced to sell its headquarters located in Kuala Lumpur to pay its debts.
Politically, MCA was widely despised by the working and lower middle class Chinese Malaysians for misappropriating their savings in the name of 'Chinese unity' and 'Chinese self-help'.
Ling era begins
After the jailing of Tan and his high-profile supporters, the MCA presidency was passed to Dr Ling Liong Sik who was then a mere junior member in Tan's faction.
The English-educated medical doctor was assisted by Lee Kim Sai, a Chinese-educated and Chinese-speaking former school headmaster. Unlike Ling who is normally reticent, Lee's image at that time was 'vocal', 'very Chinese' and 'fearless'.
The Ling-Lee honeymoon continued into the early 1990s. Both of them also began to bring up their proteges. For Ling, it was Ong Ka Ting and his elder brother, Ka Chuan, and for Lee, it was Ong Tee Keat.
In the mid-1990s, there were attempts on the part of Lee to challenge Ling for presidency but the attempts fizzled out due to intra-party cries for 'unity'.
Lee, discredited by his indecisiveness soon went into total retirement, leaving his protege, Ong Tee Keat, alone in the Ling-dominated MCA.
Ling, on his part, continued to re-balance MCA's account books and quietly pursue the programme of Lee San Choon in the late 1970s to build up not only the party organisation, but also educational institutions.
Ling ascended the throne during a period of economic prosperity and political stability in Malaysia. In the 1995 general elections, MCA made inroads into DAP's constituency, reversing a 20-year trend.
This increasingly assertive MCA under Ling posed problems to Gerakan. With renewed political and economic strength, MCA began to eye Gerakan's Penang chief ministership.
The position was in fact held by MCA until it was severely defeated by Gerakan in the 1969 general elections.
Before the 1999 general elections, MCA asserted the claim in an irredentist manner but was firmly resisted by Gerakan. Umno probably helped Gerakan at that time for fear of an resurgent MCA.
However, the 1999 general elections saw the drastic decline of Umno both in terms of seats and total votes obtained among the Malay/Muslim community.
By contrast, MCA scored relatively better. Many Umno ministers and deputy ministers survived politically because of the Chinese votes delivered by MCA.
Love it or loath it, Umno has to acknowledge the reality that without MCA under Ling, the former's showing could have been worse.
A new game
A new game seems to have emerged between Umno and MCA in the post-1999 political situation.
It used to be the usual habit for Umno to curb any strong dominant faction in MCA before 1999, but now it is to the interest of Umno to further strengthen MCA so that Chinese votes may be used to offset the decline of Malay/Muslim support. In this sense, MCA has benefited from the Anwar Ibrahim saga.
As long as Umno is uncertain of its Malay/Muslim support, it can be expected that it will support the dominant faction of MCA under the leadership of Ling at least until after the next general elections.
However, Umno also seems to face a strategic dilemma: a strong MCA in the post-Mahathir period would probably de-stabilise the ruling Barisan Nasional.
History before 1999 has taught some Umno strategists that a weak Umno cannot afford to have a strong MCA as an ally.
To overcome the short-run and long-run dichotomy of interests, it is not surprising that Gerakan, MCA dissidents and challengers, the Chinese secretariat of Mahathir, and some Chinese business lobbies are being operated in manners that are not exactly hostile to Ling, but keeping him and his faction under subtle checks.
The Umno dilemma also involves the possibility that Ling's MCA, while strong in organisation, machinery and resources, is weak in political credibility among the Chinese community, especially after it has been repeatedly attacked by the opposing Team B faction for the last ten months on a gamut of issues.
Ling's MCA in the next general elections might not be as effective in delivering Chinese votes to Umno and BN as it did in 1999.
Though a Team B victory in the party elections will certainly cleanse MCA of its image of being corrupt and tyrannical, it would also translate to an MCA with weaker organisation, machinery, and financial resources.
As for a post-Mahathir and post-Ling Malaysia, we would probably see another round of power struggle in MCA involving Ong Ka Ting and Chan Kong Choy, with Ong Tee Keat as an Umno-backed balancer.
MCA power struggles dates back to th 50s Part I
JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia. Wong 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.
