What credibility has Liow’s claim that MCA represents the Chinese when the top three MCA leaders have to depend on UMNO’s Malay votes to get into Parliament and Cabinet?

Although I had a fall in my Gelang Patah house, causing me five stitches on the right forehead and cancellation of my weekend programmes in Johor and Selangor - and I am not sure whether I would be able to attend tomorrow’s Parliamentary opening by the Yang di Pertuan Agong with the ugly blue-blacks around my right eye – I just cannot stand the MCA humbug, cant and hypocrisy at the 69th MCA anniversary yesterday.

MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, should explain what credibility he possesses when claiming at the 69th MCA anniversary press conference that MCA represents the Chinese when the top three MCA leaders, i.e. the President, Deputy President and Secretary-General, depend on UMNO’s Malay votes to get into Parliament and the Cabinet?

Is the MCA representing the Chinese in Barisan Nasional or is it representing UMNO to the Malaysian Chinese? Or is MCA representing all Malaysians, regardless of race or religion?

In Bentong, the parliamentary constituency of the MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, the single biggest ethnic bloc of voters are 46.1% Malay voters, as Chinese voters represent 42.4%, Indians 9.0% and Others 2.5%.

In Ayer Hitam, the parliamentary constituency of MCA Deputy President and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong, the largest ethnic group of voters are the 57.6% Malay voters, with the Chinese 38.3%; Indians 3.9% and Others 0.2%.

In Tanjong Malim, the parliamentary constituency of the MCA Secretary-General and Second Minister for Trade and Industry, Datuk Ong Ka Chuan, the largest ethnic group of voters are again the Malays 55.4% with Chinese 25.8%, Indians 13.2% and Orang Asli 5.6%.

Furthermore, Malay voters represent the largest ethnic group in six of the seven parliamentary constituencies won by MCA in the 13th General Election in 2013.

I have said that past MCA Presidents with sense of honour and self-respect must be turning in their grave, or for those still living, holding their heads in shame that the 69thMCA Anniversary had degenerated into a brawl with a middling UMNO Minister instead of speaking up for 6.5 million Chinese in Malaysia.

Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz is only a middling UMNO Minister, and if the entire MCA, with three Cabinet Ministers and claiming to be the world’s third largest ethnic Chinese political party with over one million members, cannot even handle Nazri, how are they to cope with the extremists in UMNO or more senior UMNO leaders?

An MCA national leader asked what the Lim Kit Siang father-and-son are waiting for and not asking Nazr to apologise?

A simple political lesson for all MCA leaders is to read DAP websites if they want to know what DAP leaders are saying, and not to just depend on MCA/UMNO/Barisan Nasional media, whether printed, electronic or social, or the highly funded “quinoa cybertroopers” for they will not get the truth!

MCA leaders have very short memory, that if no for my prodding, MCA leaders would not have defended Robert Kuok from the four-day gratuitous, baseless, malicious and savage UMNO attacks – not only from Nazri, but also three other UMNO leaders who were either Minister or Deputy Minister.

Without “green light” from the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, would there be such a gratuitous, baseless, malicious and savage UMNO attack on Robert Kuok lasting four days?

This is why I had said right from the beginning that it is not Nazri alone, but the entire UMNO and Barisan Nasional which must apologise to Robert Kuok.

When I was in Kampong Raja, Camerons Highla ds on Monday, Feb. 26, I told the MCA leadership that it would be “an eternal blot on MCA reputation” if the three MCA Ministers dare not even ask the UMNO leadership to make an open apology for their attacks on Robert Kuok.

I reminded the MCA leaders that Robert Kuok had been the benefactor, and even savior, of MCA in its trying times, and for them to stand idle while Robert Kuok was attacked gratuitously by UMNO leaders would be one of MCA’s most shameful episodes.

I even said that MCA should cancel its 69th anniversary celebrations if MCA leaders dared not defend Robert Kuok.

I said I have no personal knowledge of what Robert Kuok had done for MCA, but according to his memoir published recently, Robert Kuok had saved MCA many times, including bailing out an MCA president with RM20 million in Singapore in 1986 and rescuing MCA’s business projects that were doomed to fail.

It was only then that the MCA leaders plucked up courage and began to speak up.

Later the same day, at a DAP kopitiam ceramah at Kampong Raja, I specifically condemned an UMNO Minister for “going bersek” in using unacceptable language to denounce Robert Kuok, quoting a Greek saying: “Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first made mad”.

I asked whether the spate of gratuitous and savage attacks on Robert Kuok was because “some UMNO leader approached Robert Kuok for donations and was rebuffed” as Robert Kuok had revealed in his recent memoirs that he had contributed substantial funds to Barisan Nasional and MCA “especially when it comes to election time”.

However, the initial MCA statements defending Robert Kuok were weak and insipid, and it was after I pointed this out that MCA leaders came out with stronger statements.

I am glad that three MCA Ministers acted on my call during my speech at the Bertam Valley kopitiam dialogue to raise the UMNO attacks on Robert Kuok at the Cabinet meeting last Wednesday, but they restricted their attention to Nazri instead of asking for an apology from UMNO as a whole.

Nazri must apologise for the gratuitous, baseless, malicious and savage attacks on Robert Kuok, but it is not just Nazri, but Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Azalina Othman, Tajuddin Rahman and finally Najib himself!

Have the three MCA Ministers ever asked for aplology from Tengku Adnan, Azalina Othman, Tajuddin Rahman and Najib himself?

Today the MCA newspaper the Star carried a report headlined: “DAP’s Wong slammed over corruption remark”, where DAP’s Wong Tack was attacked for reportedly saying that the Chinese could accept some form of corruption as long as everyone lives prosperously together and those in power do not steal everything.

Those who know and supported the DAP for 52 years know that this is not the DAP stand, which stands for a Malaysia with zero tolerance for corruption – and this is why over the decades, DAP leaders had spoken up fearlessly against all forms of corruption and abuses of power.

I spoke to Wong Tack this morning, and he clarified he was misreported, as he said there were those who were of the view that the Chinese could accept some form of corruption provided everyone lives prosperously and those-in-power do not steal everything – but this had never been the DAP position.

Tiong Lai and Wee Ka Siong had been in Parliament and Cabinet for the last two decades, when Malaysia’s Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) plunged from 32nd ranking in 1999 (when Liow was first elected to Parliament) to No. 39 in 2004 (when Wee was first elected to Parliament) to the sorry ranking of No. 62 out of 180 countries in the latest TI CPI 2017!

Did Liow and Wee ever speak up in Parliament and Cabinet about continuous plunge of Malaysia in the TI CPI from 1999 to 2017?

Did Liow and Wee ever speak up about the 1MDB scandal which made Malaysia a global kleptocracy in their years in Parliament and Cabinet?

But I congratulate Wee Ka Siong for becoming UMNO’s catspaw to tar and stain the reputation of the Penang Pakatan Harapan State Government, when he has no concern whatsoever for integrity or good governance as demonstrated MCA’s spineless position on the 1MDB scandal or Malaysia’s infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy.