MCA's Triple Cai Tan

The dinner date has been set. The venue has been booked. All the guests already received their invitation. The big question is what dishes are they going to eat as the guests has been served with three types of menu. Are they going to choose from only one set, mixture of two or even ala carte choices from three menus? The guests will be spoilt for choice.

Even though there are claims by some that there are no such thing as different teams, the candidates list for the MCA election on March 28 can be pooled into three teams namely Ong Tee Keat's, Chua Soi Lek's and Ong Ka Ting's a.k.a Liow Tiong Lai's. Campaigners are expected to woo the delegates to vote along the cai tan (menu) or preferred candidates by each faction.  The cai tan are can be listed all the way to the election of central committee members. Each faction had submitted their candidates to contest in every vacancy except the deputy president position, which Ong Tee Keat faction did not managed to offer any candidate.

 

The respective faction's probable Cai Tan:

                            Ong Tee Keat's     Chua Soi Lek's                  Ong Ka Ting's

President             Ong Tee Keat         Chua Soi Lek                     Ong Ka Ting

Deputy                none                        Kong Cho Ha                    Liow Tiong Lai

Vice president     Loke Yuen Yow      Dr Ng Yen Yen                 Chor Chee Heung

                           Gan Ping Sieu          Edward Khoo Keok Hai    Yew Teong Look

                           Yap Pian Hon          Donald Lim Siang Chai       Alex Wong Siong Hwee

                           ( Dr Ng Yen Yen )   Dr Yeow Chai Thiam         ( Dr Ng Yen Yen )

As for the central committee committee members, each faction has nominated at least 25 candidates with some "outsiders" who are not alligned with any of the factions jumping in to try their luck.

 

What will be the choice menu of the 2,378 delegates on March 28?

 

In the absence of last minute horse trading, counter offers, withdrawals, back stabbing and betrayals, the choice for the presidency will be a neck to neck race. Kong Cho Ha is widely expected to obtain support from Tee Keat's faction to win the deputy president post unless both Tee Keat and Ka Ting's comes to an understanding to distribute the deputy and vice presidents posts amongst themselves. If that happens, some of their own will be sacrificed.  It can be 1 DP+1VP for Ka Ting's faction and 3 VPs for Tee Keat's group

For the four vice presidents, those who are members of parliament and holding government appointments will have the advantage. These includes Tourism Minister Ng Yen Yen and deputy Finance Minister Chor Chee Heung. Looking at it, the sure winner will be the shrewd Ng Yen Yen, the only female candidate for vice president. Her name will be on each faction's menu, even though she is known to be rooting for Chua Soi Lek.

 

The delegates criteria to elect the central committee will also give priority to candidates who are either members of Parliament or State assemblymen. The central delegates would not want to take the risk of these candidates jumping to other parties if they loses. Electing them will ensure these candidates will stay within MCA as the numbers of MCA elected representatives are already so depleted and they cannot afford to loose any of them further.

 

Geographical consideration will be another matter to look into. The delegates will need to ensure all the relevant states are representated. That is the reason why some unexpected candidates won because of territorial quota. Some will win even though they are considered losers because every delegates thought they will not win but ends up receiving enough votes to win because they are regarded as "rubbish bin". Votes are given to them not because the delegates supports them but the delegates do not want to vote others.

It will be day dreaming if anyone expects the problems in MCA to be solved with this by-election. It will be only a starter to another bigger dinner, err....I mean election. MCA will be facing another election in 2011 and the battle amongst the Three Factions will be spread out from branch level to the national election. It will be more crucial. Unless of course if the general election are held before the next MCA election as the imcumbent president will only nominate his own men as candidates and exterminate his rivals. Without any elected office or ministerial appointments, it will be tough to challenge the imcumbents by then.

That is if the MCA candidates can win in the next election. If they are wipe out or perform worse than 2008, the party will be in shambles and its relevancy to Malaysian politics will be further eroded.