MCA will pay and they will pay dearly
Richard Teo | Jun 15, 09 4:49pm

One of life's greatest irony is that there are always signs to tell you whether you are on the right path or not. The only problem is whether one is prepared to grasp the telltale signs and make the change.
MCPX

Ong Tee Keat's blog seeking an opinion poll whether the party should pull out of the Barisan Nasional confirmed what has already been public knowledge in that the Chinese have had enough of Umno and BN.

According to the poll, 1,908 (75.7%) respondents wanted the party to pull out of the coalition whilst 612 said ‘no'.

Now that the survey has indicated the majority wish of the Chinese people, the only question that remains is what would the leadership of MCA decide to do?

With four ministerial posts and none deputy ministers posts at stake, can the MCA leaders sacrifice their own positions and interest for once and look at the larger interest of the Chinese community?

Not an easy decision when one is comfortably ensconced in a minister's post with all the perks and privileges accorded to it.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is quite confident that MCA will not abandon the BN ship because history has always shown that personal interest and position have always remained paramount for the MCA leadership.

It is not easy to make the change when so much reward and positions are at stake. Past experience has also shown that MCA leaders have never paid any premium to the larger interest of the Chinese community.

As long as MCA leaders are adequately rewarded with titles and positions, Umno can always ride roughshod over MCA and Chinese interests.

But this time the writing is on the wall. The demise of MCA, MIC, Gerakan and most, if not all, of the BN component parties will be inevitable when the 13th general election takes place four years from now.

Because of self-interest, it is unlikely that any of these BN leaders will change their present allegiance to BN or to Umno. Even if they change now, there is no guarantee that that the people will embrace them immediately.

Fifty years of their loyalty to the BN philosophy is unlikely to change overnight. More specifically, the question would be what's in it for MCA? MCA surely would not make the change and cast away their loyalty to BN without getting anything in return.

In fact, the signs were already there with the March 8, 2008 election. All the 15 Parliament seats that MCA won were in areas with a Malay majority. That means MCA MPs won not with Chinese support but with Malay support.

If that is not a sign that the Chinese have not already abandoned MCA, then I dont know what other sign you need to have.

By the next election, when Malay support is given to PKR and PAS, MCA candidates will be left floundering and will be annihilated politically. That same logic applies to Gerakan and MIC candidates who will be looking for Malay support in areas contested by their members.

The survey done in Ong Tee Keat's blog merely serves to confirm that the days MCA continues to be part of the government in BN are numbered.