Immediately after the 55th MCA General Assembly last month, Umno MPs objected noisily in Parliament when I referred to the new “kangkong” MCA leadership, complaining that I was too quick-on-the draw in deriding and running down the newly-elected MCA national leaders at the just-concluded MCA party elections with Datuk Ong Tee Kiat as the new MCA President and Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek as the new MCA Deputy President.

This was of course not the case, as the term “kangkong” MCA leadership was first coined, which is completely value-neutral, was coined from inside the MCA – a play of the surnames of the new MCA President and Deputy President, which taken together, sounds like the Chinese term for “kangkong”. (“Ong” and “Chua”)

These Umno MPs were not really stout and reliable defenders of MCA dignity and reputation for they were actually the ones frequently guilty of the uncomradely act of bullying MPs and Ministers from the other Barisan Nasional parties, as illustrated by the recent attacks on the Gerakan Wanita chief and Deputy Information Minister, Datuk Tan Lian Hoe – but the mentality of being “bully victims” had become so ingrained and entrenched in the thinking of MCA, Gerakan, MIC MPs and those from other BN component parties that nobody in BN dared to speak up tro defend Lian Hoe from these attacks except for DAP and Pakatan Rakyat MPs!

Although the Prime Minister and UMNO President, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, denied at the recent MCA General Assembly that UMNO is a “bully party” to MCA and other BN component parties, nobody in MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the Sabah and Sarawak component parties really buy his denial.

The country is facing an unprecedented multiple crisis of confidence whether political, economic, educational, nation-building, good governance or key national institutions whether judiciary, the police, the Attorney-General, the anti-Corruption Agency but nobody seems to be minding the national business of governing the country even when the country is faced with the worst world economic crisis in 80 years as a result of the global financial meltdown.

This is because the leaders of Umno, the hegemon and bully in Barisan Nasional, are too pre-occupied about the first high-level party elections in 20 years to have much time for the mundane but necessary and important tasks of good governance.

MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the other BN component parties have become so marginalised that even with UMNO leaders completely obsessed and side-tracked by their own party elections, which will last another four months, it is just unthinkable that the non-UMNO Ministers and leaders could fill the void in policy-making and day-to-day governance caused by the most proctracted and dirtiest Umno party elections in history!

Things have not been helped when the other BN component parties themselves are pre-occupied with their own internal power struggle or survival.

I do not want to comment on the going-ons in the BN component parties but it cannot escape public notice that there is “melamine contamination” in the new “kangkong” menu of the new MCA leadership.

Recently, melamine contamination of milk, foodstuff, drinks, chocolates and petfood which claimed innocent lives created a nation-wide and international scare and scandal about food safety.

But even in “political foodstuffs”, there can also be melamine contamination as evident from the MCA “kangkang:” leadership and menu.

In the MIC, there is what has been described as “the battle of the has-beens” with former MIC vice-president Datuk M. Muthupalaniappan announcing that he would challenge MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu for the party’s top post,

In the Gerakan, there is neither a sense of direction nor leadership.

As a result, the country will continue to be like a rudderless ship until Umno ends its party election convulsions fuelled by the worst corruption and money politics in Umno history.

(Speech 2 at the Tawau DAP Thousand-People “Towards A New Era” Dinner on Saturday, 15th November 2008)