Published August 28, 2009

MCA faces crisis with Chua's ouster

No 2's sacking for sex video could hurt BN's chances to win back Chinese support

By S JAYASANKARAN
IN KUALA LUMPUR

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THE sacking of a top party official has split the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) down the middle and could seriously damage the ruling Barisan Nasional's (BN) efforts to win back support from Malaysia's ethnic Chinese community.

At midnight on Wednesday, the party - the second largest in the 13-party Barisan coalition after the dominant United Malays National Organisation (Umno) - expelled Chua Soi Lek, the MCA's popular deputy president, for tarnishing the party's image by appearing with his mistress in a sex video-clip first made public in 2007. It was the second time - after Anwar Ibrahim in 1998 - that a deputy president of a Barisan component party has been expelled from his party.

Dr Chua resigned as health minister after the release of the sex tape and did not take part in the 2008 general election but made a remarkable comeback last year when he won the MCA's deputy presidency. But he remained at loggerheads with MCA chief Ong Tee Keat, a feud that culminated in his Wednesday sacking.

The expulsion threatens to split the party with some MCA divisions already calling for an extraordinary general meeting to reinstate Dr Chua and pass a vote of no-confidence against Mr Ong. For that to happen, at least a third of MCA delegates nationwide - roughly 800 people - would have to support the move. The threat to Mr Ong is very real because many MCA members think they can easily get such a mandate.

The MCA's infighting threatens to paralyse the second most influential political party in the Barisan and a purported champion of Malaysia's Chinese community. The Chinese make up 26 per cent of Malaysia's 26 million people and are the second largest ethnic vote-bank in the country after the majority Malays. Economically, they are also the most dominant race.

The Barisan Nasional cannot afford a divided MCA, particularly in the light of its back-to-back losses in recent by-elections in Malaysia.

Indeed, only the MCA, and Umno, seemed relevant after the March general election last year with all the other peninsular Barisan components suffering massive losses to the opposition - the MCA has 15 seats in Parliament. Seen in that context, Barisan cannot afford a divided MCA, particularly in the light of its back-to-back losses in recent by-elections.

Mr Ong has his own troubles, which had been seized upon by Dr Chua before his sacking. Indeed, there had been calls from some of Dr Chua's supporters to suspend Mr Ong over an allegation that he took a RM10 million (S$4.1 million) donation for his party from a top businessman involved in a scandal-plagued free trade zone project.

Mr Ong has denied the charges and filed a whopping RM500 million defamation suit. But his unwavering actions in investigating the scandal have won him public support outside the MCA, and any action against him could backlash against the party.

Meanwhile, Dr Chua has 14 days to appeal the ruling. But it is more than likely that - due to the gravity of the crisis - Umno will intervene and broker a peace settlement. There is a precedent for this: in 2001, then deputy premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi brokered a settlement between warring factions in the MCA.

At press time, however, Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters that he would not intervene in the MCA crisis unless he was invited to mediate.