Blog by Lim Kit Siang in Petaling Jaya on Saturday, 6^th March 2010: 

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.

But this is not so. There has not been a murmur of criticism or protest at the most irresponsible and sustained anti-1Malaysia campaign launched by extremist forces in UMNO to play the “race and religion” card in Penang by falsely portraying Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and the Pakatan Rakyat Penang State Government as anti-Malay and anti-Islam.

Whether from the Ong, Chua or Liow MCA factions, nobody has dared to step forward to condemn the extremist, insensitive and seditious exploitation of the “race and religion” card in Penang by irresponsible Umno quarters trying to create racial and religious tensions in plural Malaysia – which is against everything that Najib’s 1Malaysia could mean or represent.

I am not interested in the protracted MCA “Three Kingdom” feud but Malaysians are entitled to ask what their power plays have to do with restoring Malaysia’s international competitiveness, economic welfare or even with Najib’s slogan of 1Malaysia.

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Ipoh Timor