“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.