MCA : OTK vs OKT?

I am exceedingly interested to witness what would be the scenario in MCA come the 22nd of March. That date is the nomination date for fresh party election is an Emergency General Meeting (EGM) of the party scheduled to take place on the 28th of March.

The acrimonious and the cacophonous crisis in the MCA’s leadership lead to the EGM as part of willful and intractable efforts to solve the discordant within the 2nd biggest BN component.

Just days after Ong Tee Kiat (OTK) announced his intention to defend his presidency, Lim Ah Lek, former MCA Deputy President came to the fore requesting Ong Ka Ting to return as President of the party and called on every quarter in MCA to persuade and entice him to lead the ailing party again.

“His willingness to take back the top post is seen as the final solution to the inharmonious party as he is still respected and well regarded by the members and the Chinese community as a whole” Lim was believed to have said..

Ka Ting has a clean bill of record for clean and dirt free image as he stepped down from the leadership honorably when MCA lost heavily with all other components in BN during the last General Election (GE) in March 2008.

He took honorably the accountability for the heavy defeat in the GE and he was the only party top leader who owned up the losses. The chiefs of other components still loiter around with their position and just refuse to leave and continue on with their loose-fitting rhetoric.

He was succeeded by Ong Tee Kiat and since then MCA was toiled by heavy and intense politicking between the top leaders for reasons known to all.

Ong Ka Ting in one of the local TV Channel responded by saying that he has not decided anything but has indicated that he might be in if his presence really can be of consequence to save the party from becoming history.

Former CC members Wong Nai Chee who was once Ka Ting loyalist and aligned himself with Liow Tiong Lai said that Ka Ting could just fit in the struggle to get the party back to normalcy.

This view is shared by at least 30 MCA Division chiefs and among them is Senator Ng Fook Heng, Paya Besar Division Chief who gave positive response to Lim Ah Lek’s call for Ka Ting to come back and lead MCA.

Ng says that Ka Ting is still young and energetic and commands respect from the Chinese and he can bring back harmony in the already distorted party.

They believe that it is quite an easy task to convince Liow Tiong Lai as almost all Ka Ting’s former followers are now aligned to Liow, and getting the support for Liow will facilitate a smooth re-entry of Ka Ting to MCA Leadership.

The youth and the Wanita wings were believed to be agreeable to consider Ka Ting to be the alternative candidates for the Presidency but OTK in his response to this claim said that one shouldn’t take the youth and wanita delegates for granted as they are not voting machines.

"They are just as human as us, having brains and preferences and taking everything for granted can be disappointing" said Ong Tee Kiat.

Conversely the die hards of Ong Tee Kiat and Chua Soi Lek believe that the re-entry of Ka Ting will only spoil the soup as they claim that OTK and CSL are also in the road for reform and they say that it is just a normal hiccup in MCA and any other active political parties.

So it looks that MCA is facing 3-corner fight for the post of President. But it is also too early to speculate as politic can be very fluid and this fluidity will find its level naturally.

As for concerned observers the new reinvention of the Party’s stability formula is badly needed to face the mountable challenges which lie ahead of us.



Thanks………………………………………Aspan Alias