The Irrelevance of Major BN Component Party Leaders
BN component parties leaders who will not be contesting are MCA president Chua Soi Lek, MIC president G.Palanivel, Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon and PPP president M.Kayveas. All of them are either keeping very quiet about their status or had announced that they would not seek for any candidacy in this GE13.
Of the MCA, MIC, Gerakan and PPP party presidents, only the Umno president, of course the prime minister as well, Najib Razak announced his own candidacy by saying that he would defend his Pekan parliamentary seat in this GE13.
MCA president Chua Soi Lek did not contest in the previous general elections (GE12) and he us currently the Selangor BN chief coordinator while his only government position is as chairman of the Penang Port Commission (PPC) which oversees the regulatory issues of the Penang Port and its subsidiary company Penang Port Sdn Bhd (PPSB). He had made several condemnation on DAP Advisor Lim Kit Siang's intention to contest in Johor, but when ask if he would contest against Kit Siang, Chua had always avoided the question and decline to comment on the same.
MIC president G.Palanivel had previously contest in GE12 for the Hulu Selangor parliamentary seat but lost the oppositions. He was appointed to helm MIC (not elected) in his capacity as party deputy president after his boss S.Samy Vellu has decided to resign party president and retire from politics. Samy Vellu too was defeated at his Sungai Siput parliamentary seat in GE12 by Dr Michael Jeyakumar of Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM). Palanivel was later appointed a Senator (member of the Dewan Negara) and made an additional Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of Indian Affairs.
Palanivel had wanted to contest again in the GE13 but has yet to get any suitable seat for himself. Inside source has indicated that he has been vying for a safer seat in a Pahang resort hill but so far no confirmation yet has been made on this. Asides, Palanivel is also currently facing some mounted pressure from Umno to give up some of MIC's seats to Umno candidates as well as pressures from a number of factions within MIC in their efforts of getting into the GE13 contests.
Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon was formerly Penang chief minister, has opted to contest in the Batu Kawan parliamentary seat in 2008 as a move to become a federal minister. However, he was defeated by the current Penang deputy chief minister Professor Dr S.Ramasamy. After his defeat, Tsu Koon was without any elected seat nor a government position for about one year and he served as full-time president of the party. A year later, after Najib became prime minister, Tsu Koon has decided to accept the Senatorship (member of the upper house Dewan Negara) and was then appointed a Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of National Unity and Key Performance Index.
PPP president M.Kayveas, was a one-term member of parliament for Taiping until he was defeated in the GE12 in 2008 by Perak DAP secretary Nga Kor Ming. Kayveas is also a former Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of Legal Affairs. After his defeat, Kayveas had went into low profile and a party insider had also mentioned that he is currently pursuing an Executive MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
Currently, he has deputized his leading role to the current PPP senior vice president Senator Maglin D'Cruz. Under D'Cruz, he has announced that PPP would be contesting in several parliamentary and state seats in the upcoming GE13.
Heading Towards Irrelevance
This is the first time in BN's history which is seeing leaders of BN major component parties are not contesting. Are they seeking to rule from behind scene or heading towards irrelevance? Well the current political situation has already proven it.
The MCA president Chua Soi Lek has embroiled in a sex scandal and he was previously expelled from the party by the then party chief Ong Tee Keat. However, Chua had his party membership reinstate by an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) which has been called by his supporters. Chua later defeated Tee Keat in a fierce party contest.
MIC president G.Palanivel, Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon and PPP president M.Kayveas are all being rejected by the people in the last general elections in 2008. Both Palanivel and Tsu Koon had later opted for a Senatorship to become ministers in the Najib administration while Kayveas has opted to stay out.
Because of his past sex scandal, Soi Lek does not seem to dare to contest in the GE13, even in his home state in Johor. When a DAP leader has decided to move to the south in order to lead the fight against the BN's might in the state, Chua had issued condemnations after condemnations, but when he was being challenged to take on the said DAP leader, he avoided and decline to comment further. Asides, Chua is also famous with his ineffective statements "if DAP were to win, PAS will turn this country into an Islamic state", "DAP is a stooge of PAS", "DAP listens and bows to PAS" and many more in his effort to convince the Chinese community not to vote for DAP in the GE13.
Palanivel and Tsu Koon had both choose to re-enter the government via back door by accepting the appointment as Senators while Kayveas has not been offered any role.
So, are these party leaders still relevant? They have been rejected by the people in the previous GE12, while the other was embroiled in a shameful sex scandal and he didn't even dare to touch the GE13 ground. These BN component party leaders has been voicing out on the transformation of their party, to give opportunities to the younger ones from their respective parties to take the lead and charge, but why are they still holding on to their party positions, when they are supposed to give up all their party post in aftermath of the GE12 which saw their defeat in their constituencies respectively?
Just look at the general elections in United Kingdom, United States, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia and Canada. When leaders of the contesting parties are defeated, they would automatically step aside and letting a new leader to take over and moving the party towards a fresh new direction.
In this case, why are the party presidents of MCA, MIC, Gerakan and PPP still staying in their respective positions, and even dare to re-join the government via back door appointments? They are reasoning that they need to stay on to guide the younger generations to lead their respective parties. Come on, they cannot even win in their contested seats or lead their parties to victory, so, how can they guide these younger leaders? In fact, they are going to lead these younger leaders into the wrong directions.
If a party is being summarily defeated in any elections, the party will need a new leader in order to move the whole organization towards a fresh new direction, not to follow or toe the line of the old or existing direction which had causes the party's defeat.
In this case, if the party presidents of MCA, MIC, Gerakan and PPP are going to stay on with their lame excuses (or simply because they wanted to maintain their party dictatorship within), then the party would not be heading anywhere positively but instead would move towards irrelevance, just like their leaders.
