“Cowardice rightly understood begins with selfishness and ends with shame.”

- José Rizal, ‘Noli Me Tángere’

The spat between the MCA’s Ti Lian Ker and Umno’s Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz is not about the disparity of power between the component parties of BN but rather the continuing existential crisis of the MCA that it has been unable to overcome since losing the support of the Chinese community.

Whereas the MIC has accepted its role as the water boy to Umno, MCA desperately attempts relevance in a turbulent time of ‘Melayu’ political upheaval.

There has always been a disparity of power within BN. However, parity of power was never the currency between the MCA plutocrats and Umno potentates who shaped the national agenda and serviced the gravy train that enabled this country to remain in relative functionality for decades.

These schemers were aided by a polity willing to subscribe to the so-called social contract, as long as the people could pursue their economic agendas and live in relative harmony.

Ti’s contention that BN playing the ‘jaguh kampung’ (village champion) was causing BN to lose cosmopolitan votes is the kind of pussy-footing that that seems to be the only stratagems that the MCA these days is capable of coming up with.

I hope Pakatan supporters are not naïve enough to think that there is no nexus of connections between MCA plutocrats and DAP operatives working together for mutual benefit, which goes far beyond political profit. The same applies to Umno and its so-called political enemies.

First off, BN is not playing the ‘jaguh kampung’, Umno is in a ‘fight to the death’ struggle with Najib refuseniks and is attempting to keep their rural voting bases safe from the clutches of a newly revitalised Malay power group. The reality is that the rural demographic in the peninsula and Umno’s vote banks in Sabah and Sarawak are holding BN together, and this is because of Umno and not because of BN.

The reality is that, unofficially, Umno has given up on urban voters and it is the responsibility of MCA to shore up support and make the case for Umno and not BN. I am sure the MCA operative is aware that there are many Umno-elected officials who do not support Najib but are only interested in their political survival that translates to Umno’s survival.

After getting a spanking from Nazri, like a chastised child the MCA central committee member claims, "Now that the ultra-Malays who destroyed Tunku Abdul Rahman's Alliance are out of BN and in Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), BN leadership must seize this opportunity to navigate BN to its rightful 1Malaysia course or the spirit of the Alliance’s founding years of Tunku Abdul Rahman," which is again horse manure disguised as a mea culpa...