Wednesday, January 26, 2011

UMNO Fights MCA: BN in Disarray

The open warfare between UMNO Deputy President, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and MCA President, Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek on the simple issue of respecting an individual’s religious sensitivity proves that the BN coalition is a 50-year marriage of convenience which is cracking at the seams.

Muhyiddin had to openly chastise Dr Chua to respect the choices of an individual, particularly one’s religious beliefs, specifically with regard to the issue of Muslim women “shaking hands” with men. As the Pakatan Rakyat parties have all pointed out, and agreed by Muhyiddin, there are many other issues of importance to discuss in an election, than about whether a Muslim woman should shake men’s hands.

Dr Chua in return, rebuked Muhyiddin for bringing the issue into the open instead of “communicating through internal channels”. He told reporters yesterday that they could go and tell Muhyiddin what he just said. Instead of putting the issue to a close, he persisted by repeating his claim that “shaking hands” is “good manners”, implying that the PAS candidate, Cikgu Normala Sudirman had bad manners for sticking to her religious beliefs.

The strain between the two race-based parties is completely understandable given that UMNO and MCA seeks only to draw the votes of Malays and Chinese respectively and do not care about the sentiments of the other communities. MCA for example, isn’t bother about the impact of its comments on Malay Muslims because it will do all that is necessary, including playing on the fear of Islam to gain the votes of the Chinese. On the other hand, UMNO will not hesitate to play on the Malay’s fear of losing political power to the Chinese to frighten the Malays into voting for UMNO.

The strategy is failing today because of a more instantaneous and open media catalysed by the online newspapers which transformed the media landscape which was previously controlled with an iron fist by BN.

On the other hand, it is the Pakatan Rakyat parties which have proven itself in slowly but surely disintegrating the racial barriers and silos with its leaders endorsing a Common Policy Platform, and criss-crosses all party ceramahs demonstrating on our ability to speak with a common voice. It is ironical that while the bonds of the 3 parties in Pakatan Rakyat, which is accused of being a marriage of convenience is only getting stronger by the day with increased understanding and cooperation, the Barisan Nasional is tearing at the seams with its leaders unable to see eye-to-eye with each other.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You speak of UMNO-MCA relations as if there is no problem in Pakatan.

May I remind you, PR Selangor is on the verge of battle regarding ‘arak’ issue. This is not the first time. Same thing happened in Kedah, concerning ‘babi’ issue.

UMNO & MCA is on the same wavelength. Their ideology is almost the same. Unlike PAS and DAP. PAS fought for Islamic country and DAP fought for liberalism, something that is VERY different.

So figure out the equation yourself ; )

Jonas Lee said...

Tony,

Apart from religious pettiness, we should focus on the big propaganda of BN, which is the ETP. Read my post here:

"For the first time, I attended the ETP briefing on 19 January by Senator Datuk Seri Idris Jala, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department cum Chief Executive Officer of Pemandu. After two hours, I find him to be quite an impressive man who appears to be honest, smart and committed in driving through the economic transformation program.

... However, if there is one cartoon metaphor that is most accurate in depicting Idris Jala's situation (and I will commission this to some cartoonists if I have not the time to draw it mysel), it is this:

With a pick and axe, Senator Jala is digging laboriously a tunnel through a huge dark mountain called Malaysia. Other adjacent mountains like China, Singapore, India also have tunnels but they have already been built and cars are zooming through them at tremendous speed.

At Senator Jala's feet are 4 dyamites which he has forgotten/refused to use. These dynamites are labelled: Abolish NEP, Abolish Cronyism, Bring Back Science and Maths in English, Prosecute and Charge Corrupted Ministers/Tycoons.

The tunnel he hopes to build is only one third of the way actual mountain underpass and it stops at a sign: 2020 ETP target.


Conclusion: He and the PM needs to do be more efficient and use those dynamites to blow up the way for the tunnel. If he does not hurry and thinks he has until 2020 to finish, other countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, etc will reach their goals faster than Malaysia.

Unless he embarks on picking the low hanging fruit and removes the heavy shackles burdening Malaysia, we may be truly stuck in the middle income tunnel hole. And this tunnel is the only hope not only for the economy but for the country and its people."