The recent fiasco at MCA’s extraordinary general meeting (EGM) clearly shows that the present leadership of the Chinese-based party is out of touch with the grassroots.

After its president, Liow Tiong Lai, said there was no walkout amongst the delegates, his deputy, Wee Ka Siong said (to my surprise) that, despite a walkout, “some of them may have left for the toilet. I don’t know.”

There is no wonder why Malaysians watched with glee the antics of one of Teresa Kok’s three characters in the political satire, ‘OneDerful Malaysia’ although Kok had not even implicated Wee directly.

In the same breath, Wee had commented about Chew Mei Fun being picked as the candidate for the Kajang by-election, saying, “Chew is everything what Anwar’s not” .

In my opinion, Wee has reduced Chew’s chance of winning the by-election, even before the campaign started.

Wee, known for the allegation of physical threat he had made during a meeting organised by Dong Zhong education group in Kajang, should not have made such a passing remark. Police investigation revealed there was in fact no physical threat to Wee as alleged, despite the audience being pissed off with him.

I wonder if this is the kind of quality that we have these days as politicians, supposedly representing the Chinese community, I keep my fingers crossed. Frankly, it made me laugh when I started thinking out loud the implications of what Wee said apart from the toilet remarks that he made.

Why can’t our politicians make more sensible statements?

There is a saying that during tough times, it is the tough that gets going. Anwar Ibrahim, as we all know, is a very capable man unlike Musa Hitam and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who despite being sacked by his boss, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, continued to put up a good fight. That’s the kind of leader that we need to purge Putrajaya of arrogant and corrupted leaders.

This means that Chew Mei Fun is an incapable leader, because she had withdrawn herself from politics when the crisis hit MCA three years ago.

Anwar stood for Justice and Equality in his campaign over the years. His party is also known as Keadilan. Going by what Wee had said, this means that Chew Mei Fun does not even care about justice and equality. So far, she has not even spoken up when a group of MCA detractors said it was unfair not to carry out secret ballots to decide whether MCA should take up cabinet positions.

Comedians are meant to be laughed at

Funny, isn’t it? That’s how a statement by Wee can be easily turned around to create some fun. Comedians are meant to be laughed at, aren’t they? I hope Wee will realise what ‘open-ended’ statement he had made, and learn from it.

To add more, Anwar spoke against political bigots who say that non-Muslims cannot use the ‘Allah’ word in their worship. Does that mean that Chew Mei Fun should toe her party’s line by supporting Umno’s stand against non-Muslims (including East Malaysians) using the name ‘Allah’ even reverently?

Anwar has gone to prison, accused of sodomy and all sorts of crimes, yet he has the tenacity to challenge the present status quo of the Barisan Nasional government. That means Chew Mei Fun lacks the qualities that we would like to see in our politicians. Can we afford to have more “Yes” men in our parliament and state assemblies? No wonder she rather quit from politics than to challenge the status quo.

Anwar is a Muslim. While Chew Mei Fun is not a Muslim, does that mean that she will lead the Opposition in Selangor because the Muslim leaders are incapable of their role as Opposition? I would like to see a woman opposition leader, but in the complexity of our local culture, no woman has reached that level; so, I wish Chew all the best.

The list is endless. When Wee made such a statement of this nature, despite him trying to qualify it, did he realise that it could lead to many more rebuttals? Or, is he thinking that we are nothing but peasants with simple minds who would agree to every word spoken by the lords?

In the first place, the timing for the EGM was bad, as Kajang voters are now gearing for the coming by-election. It is a different story if MCA was not involved in the by-election. For goodness sake, give Chew a chance to put on a good fight, instead of diminishing her chances of even campaigning for the Kajang state seat. I think MCA is not doing justice after putting Chew on the battle front.

If you have someone like former vice-president Gan Ping Sieu staging a walk-out, the MCA leadership should have taken note of the reason for the people’s objections and allowed them the benefits of the doubt to go for secret ballots.

After all, Gan had his point. By saying that the EGM went on smoothly, despite the fair request by the group who staged the walkout, Liow appears to have lost touch with the grassroots, and this, coupled with his deputy’s toilet remarks, creates further impression that the current batch of MCA is not worth its salt.

There was nothing so difficult about conducting a secret ballot. Why didn’t the MCA leaders allow it to be done in secret, if they wanted to gauge the true sentiments of the people on the ground? I hope that our politicians learn to be more political savvy with their public statements instead of making all sorts of comments that make no sense within the context of the day.

MCA could do better with more Ong Tee Keats and Lim Ah Leks. It is the dearth of such people that I find it hard to see any relevance in MCA any more.