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MGG: MCA and Dr Ling's future is in the past By M.G.G. Pillai 7/4/2002 11:34 pm Sun |
[Nampaknya semakin lama Ling bertahan semakin teruk MCA berbelah bahagi
dan dirundung masalah sehingga presiden Umno pun menjadi resah. Apa tidaknya -
undi kaum Cina itulah yang menyebabkan BN dapat terus memerintah. Pasukan Ling
bukan sahaja dibaling dengan kerusi tetapi dengan bom-bom berbentuk pendedahan
yang begitu mengaibkan sekali sehingga ramai sudah mula angkat kaki dan
bertempiaran lari kerana mereka pun lebih mementingkan diri sendiri juga.
Bukankah itu resmi budaya politik MCA (dan Umno juga) sejak dahulu kala?
- Editor] Malaysian police this week questioned an MCA presidential crony,
Tan Sri Tan Kok Ping, what he knew of a letter he used to be
appointed executive chairman of the listed gambling company,
Magnum Corporation Berhad. Some on the company's board thought
it forged and lodged police reports early this year. Tan Sri Tan
was appointed five months ago. Who wrote the letter, and who
forged it, is unmentioned, but if it could ensure a man's
elavation to executive chairman, it could be by no more than a
handful of men. Two, for all their power, would not dare; The
one who would is a fighter who would rather bring his own
organisation down than accept defeat. There is only one in the
Chinese community who answers to that description. His name is
Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik. He could well have written that
letter. Did he? For all we care, it is an outright forgery. It is tied up
in some way with MCA's leadership crisis. The MCA's future hangs
on the presidential fight between Dr Ling and his deputy
president, Dato' Seri Lim Ah Lek. It split the Chinese community
as nothing has in recent years. In no body of MCA
representatives, within the party and without, is it now safe for
Dr Ling to assume he is in control. One Lim Ah Lek man could
scuttle whatever Dr Ling plans. So what happened to Tan Sri Tan,
and his connexions to Dr Ling, is more important than a routine
police inquiry. The MCA-controlled newspaper, The Star, looks upon Dr Ling's
challenger to be lower than vermin. But it is in for a shock.
UMNO politicians look upon it now as a Ling, not MCA, paper;
especially if Dr Ling, like his predecessors, win a pyrrhic
victory. His predecessor, Mr Tan Koon Swan, found, too late,
that his victory led to the charges that sent him to jail. He
was warned of it well before he decided to split the MCA, but he
thought victory gave him immunity. It did not. Nor did it
another MCA president, Tan Sri Lee San Choon. The MCA is a
powerful weapon in the hands of its president, and that vests in
him an arrogance that in time sinks him. It would well nigh be
impossible to remove these absolute powers for every president
thinks he builds an empire to last for ever, and would not want
to remove his power to remove his enemies.
Dr Ling's son, Hee Leong, whom Dad helped make a billionaire
in three months, disregarded Dad's advice not to team up with
fugitive business man, Dato' Soh Chee Wen. This is an
interesting twist in this tangled tale for Dad's advice came when
Dato' Soh, was an honoured member of the MCA presidential
council. Dad is in a bother now, and Son helps out. Of course,
Nanyang Siang Pau, which carried this interview, did not ask him
if he could raise RM1.2 billion if he was not Dad's son. It
could not because Dad's MCA controls the Star Publications, which
in turn owns Nanyang. If Son thought he was helping Dad, he is
mistaken. Even Dad would be embarrassed at such sterling
confidence in Dad's acument. Besides he is also an MCA Youth central committee member and
batting for Dad to continue as MCA president. So, he puts the
knife into his Youth chief, Dato' Ong Tee Keat, who he says is a
deviant politician who breaches every MCA and National Front (BN)
principle and, unlike him, cares not a whit for the Malaysian
Chinese community. This must lead one to ask if he allowed this
interview because he wanted it or because Dad encouraged him to
it. Either puts Dad in a spot. Which is not, of course, Son's
intention. But Dad and Son is linked to problems in politics and
business. A former Malaysian air force chief and others sue them
over guarantees they gave in the then 27-year-old's Dad-given
right to be a billionaire as fast as he could. The Lings'
application to strike out the suit is disallowed. In other words
the pressure comes on the Lings from political, legal and other
sources. Magnum, if you recall, is a plaything of that eminent
though now-invisible Malaysian, Tun Daim Zainuddin, the likes of
him we have not heard of or seen after he decided UMNO and
Malaysia did not deserve him. As UMNO Treasurer, he was asked by
the UMNO supreme council to be given the party's accounts, and he
decided it should not. And resigned from all his party and
govrnment positions. But he controls his business empire through
proxies and by remote control. The Magnum directors would not file police reports without a
nod from on high. Would it dare if it did not? The Prime
Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, cannot break publicly with
the Chinese community. So, he moves obliquely against both it
and the MCA president. It is not the Chinese community he is
after, but of one individual who is MCA president. In other
words, the word is out UMNO is closer to the views of Dato' Seri
Lim than Dr Ling. When UMNO comes in, blood must flow. As in
every MCA crisis. History is about to be repeated. Every
elected MCA president from the first, Tun Tan Cheng-lock, was
forced out of office. A mircale it would be if Dr Ling does not
follow that tradition. In other words, whoever is elected president this year, Dr
Ling loses. He cannot now call it quits. He is hemmed in from
all sides. When he stumbled in buying Nanyang Siang Pau, it
opened a veritable can of worms he cannot escape from. Now the
Star is also on notice. Buyers could not possibly be found to
take Nanyang off its hands. It owns 93 per cent of the listed
company's shares, and if it cannot sell two-thirds of it soon, it
would be delisted from the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. When MCA
made it clear it would control Nanyang no matter who bought it,
even those could buy it decided not to.
The MCA and the community is too divided to give the Star
and Dr Ling any breathing space. UMNO and the Malay community
sees the Star now as Dr Ling's mouthpiece. The knives are out
whoever is the next MCA president. When the Star overtook the
New Straits Times, it was helped by the NST's corporate descent
into unrepayable debt and the Anwar affair which caused the Malay
to desert it in droves. Now the Star is in that position, and
UMNO is not about to let it wriggle out of its predicament.
Both the Star and the NST support the president of the political
parties which own them. But the Star has not the political clout
the NST has. Press freedom has nothing to do with it. Newspaper editors
and publishers in Malaysia are politicians masquerading as
journalists. They espouse press freedom as much as I want two
bullet holes in my head. When the editor-in-chief of the most
influential newspaper in the land is prepared to be a flunky in
the information ministry, his position cannot be an inspiration
for the cause of press freedom. They are paid well to be the
owners' mouthpiece, without the right to advice. They are
expendable, and once sacked all but employable.
Newspaper publishers and editors are too holden to whoever
controls them to stand up. They are expendable, and once thrown
out virtually unemployable. They are paid well to be mouth
pieces. Any advice they give has as much influence of their
political masters as Dr Ling's advice had on his son. With the
same result. An important section of the MCA is as disgusted at
the Star's news coverage as UMNO and the others in BN. So the
Star does not have political friends it can depend on in its
trying times. It took the short term view of being at the MCA
president's beck and call than the voice of the community in
whose name MCA owns it. The Star's brilliant reorganisation, its healthy balance
sheet, its imaginative coverage, its deliberate baiting of its
rivals all brought it to its pre-eminent role. But when the MCA
president forced it to sell its prime land in Petaling Jaya for
its own building a kilometre away which a crony built, the rot
set in. And then it was downhill. Dr Ling did the coup de grace
when he forced it to buy the Nanyang. Both look to its past for
its future glory. It need not have been. But politics in
Malaysia is of individuals not of the communities they represent.
When leaders are annointed demi-god leaders of their communities,
they would not only fall hard, but they would bring the
communities down with them. Especially if they are not Malay.
M.G.G. Pillai |