Archive for category MCA
MCA’s harakiri and its repercussions on the Chinese
MCA is an ineffective political force in part because it has long played only a marginal role in the previous Malaysia Plans — implemented by the Umno-aligned, Malay dominated civil service — that have shaped socio-economic development in the country.
The Malaysian public, especially the Chinese, must be wondering if MCA can ever get its house in order so that it can attend to the important affairs of state, especially the economy.
Besides the economy which affects the wellbeing of all households in one way or another, there are many other issues that should occupy the time and attention of the party.
Rising religious tensions; increasing intolerance of Islamic zealots; growth of rightwing Malay NGOs and extremism; lack of education opportunities for young Chinese and other Malaysians – the list is formidable. Many of these issues have implications not only for the Chinese but for the whole country.
The Najib administration’s New Economic Model (NEM) is being touted as the way forward. Do the MCA leaders know or even care what is in the model?
Read the rest of this entry »
MCA dignity and humiliation plumbing new historic lows
Most pitiable and tragic to see MCA dignity and humiliation plumbing new historic lows in its 61-year history in the past 24 hours.
Whether the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will attend the 56th MCA Annual General Meeting scheduled for Sunday became the most strategic gambit in the MCA “Three Kingdom” power tussle when the Ong remnants in the rump MCA Central Committee after the resignation of two-thirds of its membership from the Chua and Liow factions insisted on proceeding with Sunday’s MCA AGM.
The spokesman for the “Ong” MCA faction announced after the rump MCA Central Committee meeting last evening that Najib would attend which was contradicted soon after by spokesmen from the “Liow” and “Chua” MCA factions that Najib would not attend!
As if it is not shameful and humiliating enough that Sunday’s 56th MCA AGM is being aborted in less than 72 hours of its scheduled meeting by directive and pressure from outside the MCA!
It would be understandable if the MCA “Three Kingdom” power tussle is over which faction could better champion the proclaimed objectives of the party or the proper implementation of announced government programmes like Najib’s 1Malaysia concept.
Read the rest of this entry »
First time in 56-year MCA history – fresh party leadership elections decided by external remote control
Who was the mastermind of the decision yesterday to halt the 56th MCA Annual General Meeting to be held in less than 72 hours on Sunday, 7th March 2010?
Not MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat though he subsequently claimed that he was the first to call for fresh party polls.
His first comment that his supporters had “expected this long-anticipated development” is the most eloquent admission that he was completely taken by surprise by Chua’s announcement – which was why the Bernama report of Chua’s shock announcement was preceded less than two hours earlier by Ong’s special interview as MCA President on the occasion of Sunday’s 56th MCA AGM, which is as good as spiked!
Not the second MCA Three-Kingdom challenger, MCA Vice Chairman Liow Tiong Lai – though the Liow faction must be very relieved that finally MCA party leadership elections are being held.
If not Ong and Liow, was Chua the mastermind of the move?
Nobody believes that Chua would dare, or to use the Chinese description “have the leopard’s bile”, to abort the 56th MCA AGM to be officially opened by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in less than 72 hours without any “green light” from above.
Read the rest of this entry »
MCA Ministers and leaders are the “politically walking-dead” in Malaysia
Surprise of surprises that there is a MCA Minister and leader who could bestir from their political comatose stage to notice current developments around them.
The MCA paper The Star today reported the MCA vice president Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha as commenting that “the ‘internal bleeding’ of Pakatan Rakyat is just the beginning of a more serious problem for the pact” and that “Normally, in medical terms, if there’s haemorrhaging in the brain, it will lead to a stroke”.
Thanks Kong for the concern, which must have been quite an exertion from a denizen of the “politically walking-dead” in Malaysia – the MCA Ministers and leaders.
Malaysians have ceased to ask why MCA Ministers have failed to pull their weight in Cabinet, as it is generally recognized that the “politically walking-dead” can have zero weight or input in serious matters of state – which is why MCA Ministers have nothing to say in Cabinet about national issues whether 1Malaysia, NEP, braindrain, corruption, galloping crime or recent issues as in getting the Cabinet to direct the Home Ministry to withdraw its appeal against the Kuala Lumpur High Court judgment of Datuk Lau Bee Lan allowing the Catholic weekly Herald to use the word “Allah” in the Bahasa Malaysia edition and to convene an inter-religious conference to resolve the “Allah” controversy; the exclusion of Chinese and Tamil primary schools in the selection of the first list of 20 high-performance schools or the Jakim insubordination and insurrection in organsing a forum for 800 civil servants last Thursday which openly defied the 1Malaysia concept.
Read the rest of this entry »
Walk the talk, Tee Keat!
COMMENT
By Thomas Lee
[email protected]
Monday 1 January 2010
MCA president Ong Tee Keat has made a bold declaration in his New Year message that he would be ready to lead the party to stand up to injustice, and engage any other like-minded forces to seek redress on issues of public concern.
“We have to be bold and we have to be loud if and when we have to. We need to transform and energise the MCA that will be fearless in championing equal opportunities and a level playing field, not only for the Chinese community, but for all Malaysians,” Tee Keat said in his message.
Brave words, indeed, but can Tee Keat really fulfill such a tall order he has set for himself and the MCA? Read the rest of this entry »
The myth of the indispensable hero Tee Keat
By Thomas Lee
The PKFZ issue has been branded about by certain people as the reason Ong Tee Keat should remain the MCA president and transport minister. These people seem to think that if Tee Keat is not holding these positions the probe into the multi-billion ringgit PKFZ scandal will grind to a stop.
Such thinking is simply simplistic and utterly uncanny, especially when many of those arguing in support of Tee Keat are supposed to be educated and intelligent people, some of them being leaders in political parties and non-governmental organisations.
Such people should know and understand that the PKFZ buck does not stop at the desk of Tee Keat but at the table of Umno boss and Prime Minister Najib Razak. The ultimate decision on what to do with PKFZ issue is not in the hand of Tee Keat but that of Najib. It doesn’t matter who the transport minister is as it is the prime minister who will finally call the shot and make the decision. The transport minister is merely his executive officer for carrying out his will and decision.
Read the rest of this entry »
Why not a single Minister from MCA, Gerakan, MIC, SUPP, Sabah and Sarawak dare to be as outspoken as Nazri to speak out against racism as well as BTN and Utusan Malaysia’s racist outpourings which subverts the very basis of a multi-racial Malaysian nation?
Posted by Kit in MCA, nation building, UMNO on Thursday, 17 December 2009
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz is proving to be a political leader of surprises, not only with his bold and courageous denunciation of Biro Tata Negara (BTN) divisive, racist and seditious indoctrination course but in speaking out forthrightly against Utusan Malaysia’s unadulterated racism.
Condemning Utusan Malaysia for its “outdated” racist propaganda, Nazri said the Umno-owned newspaper must accept that Malaysia is a multi-racial country.
It is a tragic and terrible commentary on the success of the nation-building process that 52 years after nationhood, a national daily which is owned by UMNO, the party in power in the past five decades, has refused to accept that Malaysia is a multi-racial country and continue to call Chinese as immigrants and Indians with derogatory terms like “keling”.
With such racist mindset and mentality in the corridors of power, Najib’s 1Malaysia concept and policy has no meaning whatsoever, and it is no wonder that the public preview of the 1Malaysia programme for the seven National Key Results Area (NKRA) initiatives today has to be put off.
Read the rest of this entry »
What the Greater Unity Plan involves and implies:
By Thomas Lee
(1) Ignoring and dismissing the majority will of the party central delegates in wanting to remove the top two leaders by claiming that they lack the two-third vote to effect the dismissal, but not acepting the fact that the top two lack the support of more than half of the grassroots delegates.
(2) The coming together of the two former enemies for the sole purpose of retaining power despite losing massive support from the grassroots members. One leader is a shameless person who has no intergrity and lost all credibility when he reneged on his pledge that he will resign even if he lost by a vote but shamelessly stays on and becoming the laughing stock of the country. Another leader has a soiled reputation the subject of ridicule and derision among the people, bringing disrepute to the party.
Read the rest of this entry »
UMNO MPs’ “ambush” for OTK foiled by Minister’s absence
Posted by Kit in Corruption, MCA, Parliament, Transport on Tuesday, 10 November 2009
The ambush by several UMNO MPs for MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat last night during his Ministry’s reply in the government winding-up of the 2010 budget debate was foiled when the Minister was absent.
The reason given by the Deputy Transport Minister, Datuk Robert Lau, who stood in for the Minister, that Ong was “busy” with the official visit of the Chinese President Hu Jintao as Ong is the “Minister-in-attendance”, did not go down well with the UMNO MPs concerned as Hu’s visit would only begin the next day.
Led by Umno MP for Sri Gading, Datuk Mohamad Aziz, at least three UMNO MPs questioned Ong for the RM28 million purchase of second-hand DMUs (diesel multiple units) by Keretapi Melayu Bhd (KTMB) instead of EMUs (electrical multiple units).
Mohamad even asked the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the Transport Minister for the DMU decision, which is the first time a Barisan Nasional backbencher had called for anti-corruption investigation into a Barisan Nasional Minister. Read the rest of this entry »
Time For MCA To Ask Najib To Step In – Hishammuddin
KLUANG, Nov 7 (Bernama) — The time has come for MCA to ask Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to step in to resolve the crisis the party is facing, said Umno vice president Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.
Hishammuddin said he believed the Prime Minister would not hesitate to assist MCA in trying to resolve its problems as the BN was also affected by what was happening in the party.
“I do not want to interfere in MCA’s internal matters but I am concerned about our (Umno’s) friends. If previously the BN chairman only gave advice, now it is time he stepped in to help out.
“I feel the public also feels the same way. Umno is also not happy with the turn of events in MCA. The people in the end will become bored with us (BN component parties) and look elsewhere for leadership, which will not only be a loss for MCA but the BN overall,” he told reporters after attending a youth carnival here on Saturday. Read the rest of this entry »
Strange, stranger, strangest – Chua is MCA deputy president
11/03/2009 03:36 PM
MCA Greater Unity Plan – President OngTeeKeat sacks 4 Liow-aligned central committee members ChorCheeHeung GanHonSu ChaiKimSen YooWeiHow.
11/03/2009 01:34 PM
Strange, stranger, strangest – Chua is MCA deputy president: ROS shocker http://bit.ly/2AUapk
————
Chua is deputy president: ROS shocker
Nov 3, 09 1:18pm | Malaysiakini
In a dramatic turn of events, the Registrar of Societies (ROS) has declared Dr Chua Soi Lek the legitimate MCA deputy president.
Read the rest of this entry »
No cheers for Farce of the Year
Posted by Kit in Kee Thuan Chye, MCA on Tuesday, 27 October 2009
By Kee Thuan Chye
SURE, “politics is the art of the possible” – especially if it involves politicians who can change their tune overnight. That’s why it has been possible for Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek to suddenly become friends again after a year of fierce animosity between them.
The art of the possible also works with politicians who can forget about scruples and put on a show. Nothing exhibits this more clearly than the outwardly awkward reconciliation between these enemies last Thursday. For added value, the would-be usurper of the presidency, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, was also dragged into the act, a seemingly reluctant performer at that. So too was Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha, who had until now kept a dignified low profile.
It was a show that could easily have given the Goons of that famous British TV comedy a run for their asininity. I laughed so much, I had to call it the Most Laughable Farce of the Year, and nominate Ong, Chua and the supporting players for Best Comic Ensemble.
Read the rest of this entry »
MCA leaders as great a focus as Najib in the 2010 Budget presentation in Parliament
Posted by Kit in Budget Debate, MCA, Najib Razak on Saturday, 24 October 2009
MCA leaders were as great a focus as the Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in yesterday’s 2010 Budget presentation in Parliament – the visibly uncomfortable MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and the forlorn MCA Deputy President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
This was a departure from the Budget Day in Parliament in previous years when the budget for the new year had no competitors for attention and would be the cynosure of all eyes and ears.
This distraction is highly pertinent to the relevance of theme of Najib’s first Budget, viz: “2010 Budget – 1Malaysia, Together We Prosper”.
The question that immediately comes to mind is how there can be a 1Malaysia Budget when it is founded on such shaky foundations like “1MCA”, with all top MCA leaders totally discredited after treating the MCA Central Committee members, over 2,300 MCA delegates, the Chinese community and the Malaysian people as “suckers”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Three MCA factions of Ong, Liow and Chua re-assembled as “1MCA” under Najib’s “1Malaysia” dictate with RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal as the greatest casualty as it has disappeared from the radar of the MCA leaders
Posted by Kit in MCA, Najib Razak, PKFZ, UMNO on Friday, 23 October 2009
The three MCA factions of Ong Tee Keat, Liow Tiong Lai and Chua Soi Lek have re-assembled as “1MCA” under the dictate of Prime Minister Najib Razak’s “1Malaysia” but the “mother of all scandals”, the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal is the greatest casualty as it has disappeared from the radar of the MCA leaders.
When the Ong faction split asunder at the MCA central committee meeting of Oct. 14 following Ong’s refusal to resign as MCA President despite the passing of a motion of no confidence in his leadership at the Oct. 10 MCA extraordinary general meeting (EGM), Ong wrote in his blog to justify his decision:
“I still have a long list of unfinished business involving Party and public interests, like the direct election of the MCA presidency and the Port Klang Free Zone issue. It is my wish to see such issues be addressed without any abrupt disruption.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Tee Keat clings on, Liow is No 2 and MCA heads for implosion
By Lee Wei Lian and Leslie Lau
The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 — Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai was appointed deputy president of MCA today after a heated central committee meeting that saw him at loggerheads with party president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat who says he will now call for another EGM.
Ong also refused to resign as party president today despite losing a confidence vote last week.
The party president will now use his powers to call for another EGM to decide if the party should have fresh elections.
Read the rest of this entry »
Muhyiddin claim that BN unites various races in Malaysia never sounded so hollow when Umno most guilty playing racial card to cling to power
In the Bagan Pinang by-election, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin claims that the government would not allow any quarters to disrupt racial unity in the country and would promptly act against those who played up sensitive racial issues.
He said since the Barisan Nasional (BN) governed the country, it had managed to unite the various races which had different cultures, customs and religions.
Muhyddin’s claim that BN unites the various races in Malaysia has never sounded so hollow when Umno is most guilty of playing the racial card to cling to power.
It is now Pakatan Rakyat which has a more legitimate claim to represent the diverse races, cultures and religions in the country than Barisan Nasional as demonstrated by the results of the March 8 general elections last year and subsequent developments. Read the rest of this entry »
What a 52nd National Day!
Posted by Kit in Health, MCA, Najib Razak, nation building on Thursday, 27 August 2009
From http://twitter.com/limkitsiang
What a National Day on Monday! Najib’s 1Malaysia gets drubbing in Permatang Pasir. MCA sacks ChuaSoiLek. SamyVellu in MIC. H1N1 – 71 deaths
27th August 2009 07:37 AM
Pathetic neither Tee Keat nor Tsu Koon dare to dissociate MCA/Gerakan from Umno candidate Rohaizat for not being honest or truthful with BN leadership and Permatang Pasir voters
It is sad and pathetic that neither MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat nor the Gerakan President Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon dare to dissociate the MCA and Gerakan from the Umno candidate for Permatang Pasir by-election Rohaizat Othman for not being honest and truthful with the Barisan Nasional leadership and the 20,290 voters of Permatang Pasir about his being struck off the lawyers’ rolls.
After the political tsunami of the March 8 general elections last year, where Gerakan and MCA received an unprecedented thrashing in the polls, with a total rout in Penang state, Gerakan and MCA leaders promised to learn the lessons from the electoral debacle.
Gerakan and MCA leaders admitted that they were punished for their servile and subservient role in the Barisan Nasional and pledged that henceforth they were not going to be “yes men” and “yes women” to Umno in Barisan Nasional and would speak out strongly, fearlessly and consistently on what is right and wrong in the Barisan Nasional without being afraid of displeasing Umno “Big Brother”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Why 8 STAR reports in 8 days on“black blog” to defame DAP Selangor leaders but no mention of RPK’s blog post detailing 5 flights taken by Ong Tee Keat in private jet of Tiong King Sing?
Posted by Kit in Corruption, MCA, PKFZ on Monday, 3 August 2009
MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat yesterday thanked me for lodging a police report last Monday to protect his life over a death threat to him, but said I had no locus standi in the matter and that in any event, I was “one-step too late” as he had lodged a police report the same day.
There is no need for Ong to thank me as I was lodging a police report more for the public interest to ensure that Cabinet Ministers whether Ong or the others are not threatened by Malaysia’s version of “black gold” politics invoking “dark forces” of politico-business underworld combined with certain Barisan Nasional elements to compromise the integrity of their decision-making process.
However, it would appear that Ong has lodged a police report on a threat to him which is different from the death threat which had been made against Ong much earlier – which means my police report was indeed necessary to protect Ong’s life.
Read the rest of this entry »
Strange mainstream media behaviour about Tee Keat lodging police report for threat to him – prominent even front-page treatment in Chinese press but totally ignored in English and Bahasa media
It is indeed a strange behavior of the mainstream media today – prominent even front-page treatment in Chinese newspapers on the police report lodged by MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat about a threat to him but totally ignored by English and Bahasa Malaysia media (even by MCA-owned Star)!
Why is this? A Cabinet Minister and leader of the third largest Chinese political party in the world receiving threat or death threat but not newsy enough to be reported in the English and Bahasa Malaysia mainstream media, even by MCA’s own Star newspaper?
Is it a farce and all-in-the-know in the media business know that it is a charade – to be played up in the Chinese media but ignored in the English and Bahasa Malaysia media?
This is the first question that intrigued me when I saw the various media coverage of Ong’s police report of a threat to him.
Read the rest of this entry »