“Provide Check and Balance, Prioritise
Public Opinion”
MCA 70th Anniversary
Speech by Secretary-General Datin
Paduka Chew Mei Fun
2nd March 2019, Dewan San Choon
MCA President YB Datuk Sri Dr Wee Ka
Siong
Deputy President Dato’ Dr Mah Hang
Soon
Former Presidents
Leaders of Chinese guilds and
association
And my comrades,
Good morning!
Charles John Huffam Dickens
(1812-1870), a renowned 19th Century UK novelist, has this to say in his famous
novel A Tale of Two Cities:
This is the best of times, it was the
worst of times;
This is the wisdom of the times, it
was foolish of times;
This is the era of trust, but also the
age of suspicion;
This is the season of Light, but also
the season of darkness;
This is the spring of hope, but also
the winter of despair;
Our promising, while little reason for
hope;
We are together toward heaven, we all
go in another direction...
Dear comrades, and friends of MCA, the
above quotation not only best describes the situation our party is in, but it
is also deeply inspirational! If we choose to continue to fail and be
depressed, this will be the worst of times. However, if we choose to admit and
accept our past, and are willing to self-reflect, be determined to overcome
obstacles and go beyond, this will be the best of times for our resurrection
and renaissance!
After consecutive failures in 3
general elections, we have no choice but to accept the cruel reality of being
deserted by people and members. We have lost the government and the channel to
directly serve the people and implement various projects for them.
Nevertheless, this has provided us an opportunity to self-reflect and carry out
soul-searching. After the change of role where we now have experience at both
sides of the divide, let us take the opportunity to transform ours into an
all-rounder party capable of facing any challenges!
Dear comrades, there will not be
mountains without flatlands. But there is a limit to a mountain’s height, and
we may have no choice but to descend after the summit. However, there is no
reason for us to slow down nor give up, but instead gear up to scale a higher peak
next!
Dear comrades, we must realise that
MCA’s political long march is never smooth sailing, whether in the past,
present or future, and there is no such thing as a honeymoon. If we envisage to
return to the political mainstream in the shortest time possible, and ensure
our party is evergreen, all of us must persevere in good morality,
self-resilience and be hardworking. We must also put ourselves in the shoes of
the rakyat, and insist on realising our party’s vision and duty.
After the May 9th general election, we
are left with only our President as the sole Member of Parliament. But he
adjusted quickly in terms of mentality and response, and stands out as an
Opposition figure in a very short time. In and out of Parliament, and in the
cyber world, he alone faces it all. Some say MCA is now a ‘one man show’!
Ladies and gentleman, is this what we
want to see?
Dear comrades, is this what we want?
And we ask the President, is he happy
about this?
Obviously, it is a big ‘no’!
What we want is a battalion of
all-conquering MCA fighters! Towards this end, we need your speedy, aggressive
and self-driven action to join in the battle, and our response with speed and
accuracy in this era where information and news travel at light speed, will
determine the party’s image among the general public! The President’s anxiety
is not without reason.
Therefore, my dear comrades, after 70
years of ups and downs, it is about time for us to self-reflect and face our
failures and weaknesses with all our sincerity, with a promise not to repeat
the same, ever again!
Let us restudy out party’s founding vision,
and reaffirm our commitment to be based in the Chinese community but to serve
all Malaysians; Let us fully adopt the “A New Era, A Renaissance: MCA Execution
Blueprint (2018-2021) formulated by the current leadership after a detailed and
careful study, and build up a battalion from one man, to reconquer Putrajaya in
the shortest time possible!
But please do not get me wrong. There
is no blood-letting here. We do not want to emulate DAP’s Superman Hew in using
vulgarity, what more getting his party into trouble, and then pretending to
resign from it, and went on to make an insincere apology just to accept a lowly
CEO position in the Malaysia-China Business Council. He is so much like the
backdoor Deputy Minister of Defence Liew Chin Tong: Both are ever-ready to
stoop to a low for the sake of being appointed to posts. And Tan Kok Wai, your
action in creating the CEO post out of nothing just to reward Hew has exposed
your true colours!
Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a
Cabinet fit to enter the Malaysia Book of Records as the one with the biggest
number of Ministers holding dubious degrees. We have this Deputy Minister of
Foreign Affairs who holds a “fraudulant Cambridge University degree”, a
Minister of Housing and Local Government who used to pretend to have graduated
from the National University of Singapore, a Defence Minister who was actually
kicked out from UiTM and a Finance Minister who claimed to be a Chartered
Accountant but was only able to produce a ‘provisional certificate’ without any
explanation until today. And we also have a Minister of Primary Industries who
had the guts to threaten on the first day of the Chinese New Year, to retaliate
tit-for-tat against the 28-member European Union. Think about our strength and
theirs. We salute her guts, but are also saddened with her naivety!
And we must also not forget to mention
DAP’s Secretary-General in-waiting Anthony Loke bringing his wife along to an
official meeting between the Ministers of Transport of Malaysia and China held
in China. This is a big joke and a breach of protocol, no matter how he and his
aides try to justify it.
Dear comrades, the Pakatan Harapan
government has committed many mistakes and jokes we have never heard of. Even
after coming into power for over 9 months now, way beyond the longest probation
period of 6 months, it is still being described by its own leader as being
L-licenced. We may watch such comedies with laughter and a cup of tea, but this
will not help us recover our seats.
This is evidenced from the Balakong
and Cameron Highlands by-elections, where the return of Chinese votes is still
disappointing despite our all-out efforts. Unless if the economy continues to
go downhill, cost of living continues to climb up and other grave
administrative blunders befall, the people, especially the Chinese, will
continue to give them chances. In other words, even though PH’s administrative
failures will undoubtedly increase our chances of winning, we cannot be sitting
still and waiting for them to rot by themselves. We must be strong ourselves
and constantly look for the point to cut in, set our target, be united and
march forward together, hand-in-hand! We must convert our disappointments into
energy and build up the MCA army, be strong, pragmatic, fact-based and articulate,
and be a strong political force in complementing the President, so that he
shall no longer be lonely.
Dear comrades, let us go into action
immediately. As the Opposition, we must check and balance: check the
government’s policies, development, implementation and, balance it to ensure
the government keeps to its promises, and, root out power abuse and corruption.
From our role in ‘solving people’s problems’ previously, MCA today is ‘voicing
out for the people.’ We will pressure and check the government, for the people.
Actually the job is much better now, with many giving their thumbs up. You may
ask the President, how did he feel when he questioned the Minister of Finance
as to why petrol prices did not decrease according to the down trending of its
market price, and everybody with his/her watchful eyes was waiting for PH to
answer?
But more importantly, the government
had to cave in to his pressure and let the petrol prices float, clearly proving
that PH had breached its promise. So how was the feeling? Surely it felt good
as the President is doing a good job. My dear comrades, let us prioritise the
people’s voice, and check and balance the government together. We must always
remember that, the loss of government should never be an excuse to not serve the
people!
Talking about the quality of service
at the grassroots level; Till today, not many parties can come near to MCA’s
level. This is our strength. If we choose to give up due to defeats, we will
become losers. How then will we be able to return to the mainstream? More so
when we are eager to pressure the PH government to keep to its promise to
implement local council elections as soon as possible. If we had chosen to stay
away now, how are we going to face the elections then? Think about it.
Our defeat and their victory have
provided a timely opportunity for the people to compare the capability of both
to govern. Through comparison, people will get to see the good and bad of both,
and be able to re-evaluate our past performance.
Dear comrades, from the video clip
just now, we have seen the Cabinet role MCA’s past leaders undertook in the
past 70 years of nation building. They helmed Ministries, set the policies and
ensured their implementation. They participated in formulating national
policies. We saw the first and second Ministers of Finance, Tun H S Lee and Tun
Tan Siew Sin’s effort in setting up Bank Negara Malaysia, regulating the
financial system, developing a tangible economy and promoting our Malaysian
currency and even made it the strongest it had ever been; Tun Dr Ling Liong
Sik, Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy, Tan Sri Ong Tee Kiat, Tan Sri Kong Cho Ha and
Dato’ Sri Liow Tiong Lai were once Ministers of Transport. They laid the
backbone for the national sea, land and air transportation networks, from
international airports, seaports, railways, budget airlines and Mass Rapid
Transit. Tan Sri Chan Siang Sun, Tan Sri Lee Kim Sai, Tan Sri Dr Chua Soi Lek
and Dato’ Sri Liow Tiong Lai took care of public wellness and health, where
complete, quality and affordable public healthcare services were put in place;
Tun Michael Chen Wing Sum, Tan Sri Dr Ting Chew Peh, Tan Sri Ong Ka Ting, Tan
Sri Chor Chee Heung and Tan Sri Kong Cho Ha formulated healthy housing
development policies and constructed affordable houses and apartments; Tan Sri
Lim Ah Lek and Tan Sri Dr Fong Chan Onn developed our human resources and
established the technical and vocational education training system; while Tan
Sri Lee San Choon and Tan Sri Tan Koon
Swan pushed through in the Cabinet and Parliament, amendments to the Education
Act, paving the way for the subsequent mushrooming of tertiary education
institutions. All these contributions, among others, are testament to MCA’s
influence in the government, contrary to DAP’s long-time slander that MCA was
powerless and functioned only for Chinese-related education, small and medium
industries, economy and culture. We, as MCA members must endeavour to dispel
such myths created over the years by DAP.
Ladies and gentlemen, our grasp of the
truth begets our confidence! Even though we are based in the Chinese community,
we co-developed the nation. We are a Chinese-based party, and a party for all!
After losing the Chinese support for
consecutive terms, and considering the decreasing Chinese population ratio in
Malaysia, some members started to have the idea that, since we do not get
support from the Chinese, we should then depend on the Malays to win the
government. It is the cruel fact that we cannot return to the political
mainstream without support from the Malays. But we must also remind ourselves
as to our roots. Without the support from our own community, we would be
governing without dignity! Whether we like it or not, we must shoulder on the
pressure to obtain Chinese votes in every single election. Likewise in Pakatan,
no matter how DAP tries to neutralise its Chinese image, it is expected to
deliver the Chinese votes. Therefore, we can see that whether it was Cameron
Highlands or Semenyih, DAP’s main battle grounds are still the Chinese-majority
areas, and DAP aimed its gun at MCA even though we were not contesting.
As such, we should never offend our
community in our effort to woo other communities. DAP can abandon its Chinese
identity and commitment in order to govern, but we can never do this, as we
believe, safeguarding the rights of the Chinese community is also tantamount to
safeguarding the rights of other ethnic minorities, and safeguarding multi-culturalism
and moderation.
Ladies and gentlemen, ever since PH
and DAP admitted Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) into their fold in their
quest to conquer Putrajaya, and propelled the presumably racist and dictatorial
Tun Dr Mahathir as Prime Minister, the vision of non-racial politics which DAP
had all-along been promoting has gone up in smokes. Even more horrifying is
their deafening silence over PPBM’s Bumiputera Agenda, and the Minister of
Finance’s abuse of power to suppress the Chinese community by axing the annual
matching grant ranging from between RM30 million to RM60 million for TAR
University College. Although allocations are given to 3 tertiary university
colleges and independent high schools, the amount allocated is far lesser than
that which should be allocated to TAR UC. In the meantime, government resources
had been used to aggressively pacify the Bumiputeras and help DAP discard its
Chinese characteristics. That is why we observe that, even though Lim Guan Eng
is still unable to come out with any sound financial policies and only knows
how to cancel or reduce the scale of major infrastructure projects and dispose
of national assets, the crafty Mahathir still repeatedly praises him as the
best Minister of Finance, all because Guan Eng in his eagerness to secure Malay
support and discard his Chinese image, had taken the initiative to realise
Mahathir’s Bumiputera agenda. Mahathir has realised his wish hands-down.
With DAP’s backing, PAS has evolved
from a regional party to a national entity after the March 8, 2008 and May 5,
2013 general elections. From the party’s various narratives and its strong
objections against local council elections in order to stop the Chinese from
helming town councils, the true colours of PAS, apart from being a religious
extremist party is also a racial extremist. On the other hand, Mahathir is aggressively
taking in UMNO members and strengthening Dato’ Seri Azmin Ali’s influence, and
PPBM has spread its wings to Sabah and Sarawak. All these point to the fact
that Mahathir is aggressively expanding PPBM’s power base and embarking on a
grand design to unite the Bumiputeras, and DAP’s non-racial politics narrative
will no longer be an issue. Instead, DAP is of greatest help to PPBM’s agenda
as it is leading the nation towards the journey of no return of mono-racialism
and Bumiputera-dominance! The duty to stop such development has, therefore,
befallen upon the shoulders of MCA, and all of us.
Ladies and gentlemen, in conjunction
with the President’s launching of the Government Monitoring Group, we would
like to add in an “MCA Young Speakers Platform” named “Vocal.” We have selected
six young adult members aged below 40 years whereby 3 males and 3 females from
MCA Youth and Wanita MCA, will speak in either Mandarin, Bahasa Malaysia or
English to express their thoughts about society, the nation and various issues,
for about 8 minutes each. Thereafter, we will recruit more young talents and
expand our platform to all states and divisions, with the aim to nurture more
young talents to have a political sense. At the same time, with the promotion
of multi-lingual usage within the party, we are also encouraging our members to
venture outside and establish more frequent inter-ethnic contacts and
co-operations, in our march towards a party serving all races in its truest
sense.
Since the Central Committee had on 27 January
this year, adopted the Execution Blueprint themed “A New Era, A Renaissance”
which was formulated based on the President’s election manifesto and vision,
under his instructions, the MCA Headquarters Secretariat has started to
implement various related programmes. Our reform is three-pronged, from
1. Organisational
restructuring
2. Agencies
and human resources revamp
3. Reshaping
of party image and role
Hopefully the transformation this time
around will not only be felt by members and participated by staff, but also witnessed
by the people at large!
Members are assets of the party. We
have started a talents incubation programme to recruit, select, groom and
entrust talents from within and outside of the party. We have increased the
columns for personal data in the application form for new members, especially
for academic qualifications (a kind reminder: no certificates from diploma
mills please), language ability, talents and commitment to participate in party
programmes and services and others. Through the Central leadership’s initiative
to recruit such talents, we hope that we can discover talents that had been
inadvertently left out, and we also welcome self-nomination from members.
Ladies and gentlemen, even though this
is the worst of times, it is also the best of times! Because this is the time
we are forced to abandon the past, unload our baggage, restart our journey and
strive for our renaissance! Forget not we are a pure Chinese party, but also a
party serving all people. We must go beyond our race and community, to be with
every Malaysian!
Lastly, I am pleased to announce the
congratulatory messages we received from political parties overseas, including:
1. Nepal
Congress
2. Bharatiya
Janata Party, India
3. Senate
of Pakistan Foreign Affairs Committee
4. Japanese
Communist Party
5. Prosperous
Armenia Party
6. Jatiya
Party Bangladesh
7. FUNCINPEC
Party, Cambodia
8. Kurdistan
Democratic Party
9. General
Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, Former Prime Minister, Kingdom of Thailand, and
10. Bangladesh
Nationalist Party
Ladies and gentlemen, with so many
friends around the world, we must be strong to repay their confidence and
support!
Go MCA go! I wish MCA longevity and
hope for its speedy return to the mainstream!
Thank you.
