Chua Soi Lek: Ruling M’sia is a racial balancing act

Below is the interview that MCA President Dr Chua Soi Lek gave to The Edge Financial Daily. 

TEFD: How has it been since you were elected as MCA president over a year ago?
Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek: It has been a busy one and a half years trying to ensure that the party is united and more stable with what we call Unity in Purpose and that we can then move forward.

Has it been easy to pull everyone back together?
I would say that I have managed to pull most of the people back but in any political party, there can never be 100%.

What is the single thing that has been most challenging in your tenure?
Uniting the various members and factions.

Chua: We want the goverment to transform as fast as what the rakyat wants.

Recently you tweeted that there are some unhappiness in the Kulai division.
All political parties, at every division, have its own internal conflicts. That’s what makes politics very challenging and interesting. To project a party to say it has no factions and no cliques, that is the biggest lie in the world.

At the central and state level, I would say MCA is very united. It is at the divisional level that we still see a lot of people problems where people cannot put aside their differences in opinion. They are at loggerheads over minor things.

But the divisions are crucial for the party, aren’t they?
Oh yes! It is at the division that things get done.

So you will have to settle the conflicts before the general election?
You can never settle all these internal conflicts. The important thing is to choose a candidate who is acceptable and winnable.

What is your proudest achievement in this period as party president besides uniting the party?
I would say some of the long standing educational issues have been resolved one by one, slowly. An example is the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC). It used to be a ‘no go’ situation, but now at least there is some breakthrough. They [students] can get loans from the Higher Education ministry, they get 50 [scholarship] awards every year with no condition attached and this year it is the first time they can get admission into the teachers’ training college based on the UEC results.

On Chinese education, at least we managed to convinced the minister that the [schools’] water and utility bill should be paid by the government although they capped it at RM2,000 per month. That could have settled most of the Chinese schools’ problems.

In a multiracial country, the rakyat has to accept the fact that no race gets everything it wants.

We also ensured that all development grants to Chinese schools are in cash terms. It is given to the board and all the relocations and new Chinese schools are paid for by the government.

Finally, there is this mutual recognition between China and Malaysia on the university degrees. Mutual recognition means that whatever is recognised by the education ministry in China is also recognised by Malaysia and vice versa.

I am trying to work on UEC being recognised by local universities, now that they can be admitted to teachers’ training colleges. But the problem (with UEC) is there is no way to evaluate their standard because the Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA) felt that they are not following the national syllabus. They (the MQA) have to look into the  details, so we will take it step by step.

What is MCA’s role in representing the people in the light of the political climate today? Is MCA out of touch? Is there a disconnect between MCA and the people, especially the younger set?
No, it is not true that there is a disconnect between MCA and the people. It is the people that have rising expectations, which the government is unable to meet. When they are unable to meet (these expectations), MCA being a component party (of Barisan Nasional) is blamed. It is said that we are out of touch with the Chinese community.

DAP’s role is very simple. They will just raise the expectations of the Chinese community and when MCA cannot deliver, then they say MCA is irrelevant. It is very simple. And this role they have been playing, I would say for 40 years in the opposition, they are now playing this role to perfection.

A very good example, which is very dear to the heart of the Chinese community, is education and Chinese schools. But if you look at Pakatan Rakyat (PR), in their so-called Orange Book, which lists what they will do in the first 100 days if they are in power, you just have a look at it on the educational issue. Whatever DAP tells the Chinese community that they will do, is not inside (the book). So what does that convey to you?
Soon if DAP is in power, MCA will be singing what DAP is singing.

Don’t you think that because people are more educated now, so they question…?
It cannot be denied that as a country develops, the level of education goes up, people are more demanding, people are more sophisticated, people are more critical and people come to value not just development but intangibles, as they call it. Things like freedom, fairness, transparency, that sort of thing.

The Public Services Department (PSD) scholarships…
The PSD scholarship issue is a very unfortunate incident where the government actually honoured everything. The DAP did nothing. We collected everything. I think no political party collects information they way we collect.
I don’t think people are being fair to MCA. People believe in rhetoric, political posturing, not doing work. If this is what the community wants, then it is rather unfortunate.

You said our expectations are rising and the government cannot meet…
The government’s response has not been in tandem with the rising expectations.

Then how do you/MCA work out this imbalance?
That is why it is a challenge to the party. We want the government to transform as fast as what the rakyat wants.

And how do you do it with your component partners?
I interact with the prime minister and deputy prime minister very often. We meet very often on very focused issues. Some of the issues have been sorted out but not all issues.

But that does not seem to be enough to satisfy the peoples’ expectations.
People expect a big change. But the changes that are happening are small steps. People expect as if it is a revolution. People forget that this is a multiracial country. There is this perception that whatever is given to the Chinese will be at the expense of the Malays. It’s as if it is a zero sum game, which is rather unfortunate (because) it is not very true.

So how do you manage this?
Managing the different expectations of all the different races is something the BN have been doing since the day we achieved Independence. If there is any political party that can claim to have the experience, I would say it’s BN.

You choose to look at Penang. In Penang, the Chinese may feel very happy. They feel Lim Guan Eng looks after them. But if you talk to the Malays and Indians, they will tell you a different story.

Why is that so? Project it to the national level. What will then happen? What does that mean? It is the same... this government has to practise the politics of balancing. Balancing the needs and expectations and considering the sensitivities of all races.

But the Chinese community don’t see that balance.
I think it’s a dangerous trend that I see. After March 8 (2008), people were very excited that you have a two-party system. And this two-party system has now degenerated, gone downhill into a two-racial system, and DAP is at the forefront of this.

It will come to a stage where the government will be made up of a mono-ethnic race. This is slowly developing, which is rather unfortunate. And you cannot just blame the politicians. The rakyat also has to take the blame because the politicians respond to the rakyat in order to play the populist tune. And the easy way out is going back to race and religion.

So what should the rakyat do?
The rakyat has to accept the fact that this is a multiracial country. No race gets everything it wants. That’s why we subscribe to the 1Malaysia concept that we have to accept that this is a multiracial society and race has its own identity, sensitivity, value systems and needs. And we need to work with each other to keep this country going.

And no particular race can monopolise everything.

You said hopefully everyone can think out of the race box.
When our PM propounded this idea of 1Malaysia and the fact that it has been only two years and we have not achieved it, people just rubbished it as part of BN’s empty slogans. Of course it cannot be achieved overnight.

You are talking about race, peoples’ ethnic identity. How can it be achieved within two days or two years? So I said hopefully, if it can be achieved by 2020, we should be happy. So everybody should start. The PM has to start somewhere to drum into all Malaysians that they must think out of the racial pigeon hole.

But we still have racial based parties. So how does that jive?
The race-based parties started because there was a need at that time before Independence. Nowadays people just rubbish all the race-based parties, forgetting that it was these race-based parties that worked together to achieve Independence.

At that time, there were people who tried to talk about multiracial parties. It didn’t work. So everybody grouped according to their own race. And today some bright people suddenly say ‘you people who are race-based are all rubbish’.

Are race-based parties still needed here?
I would say that right at the very moment, it is still needed. But all of us have to take it out of the box. We cannot remove the fact that today you are sitting in front of me and I know you are a Chinese. I cannot deny that I am a Chinese. But I cannot think everything Chinese.

MCA may be a mono-ethnic Chinese-based party but if you look at our services and what we do, it was meant for everybody. When we started Kolej Tunku Abdul Rahman and Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, it was meant for everybody. We never said that it was meant for Chinese.

When we launched the 1MCA Medical Foundation, until today about 20% of grants are given to non-Chinese and it is based on their needs. Last year we launched the Mobile MCA Service Unit, it serves everybody.

Post March 8, what have you done to reclaim Chinese support? The numbers seem to have come back in the last few by-elections.
I would say that we have become more focused on issues, which are very central to the Chinese and Malaysian community.

A very good example is the minimum wage, which we have been pushing very hard. We felt that this country needs to implement a minimum wage so that everyone’s wages will rise in tandem, slowly, together with productivity. Until and unless we do that, we will continue to have the problem of brain drain because our salaries are just too low. The rate of increase is just too low, something like 2.6% in the last 10 years. How can we survive? The lower [income] level people cannot survive.

The PM has agreed that it should be implemented but it is very slow. I hope the human resources minister is pushing hard for it.

I am the one who raised the issue that the government needs to look into the welfare of the estate workers in the National Economic Council. Today I am very happy that this was taken up seriously by the PM and Sime Darby Bhd will set the benchmark for general plantation workers’ salary. We hope this will really lift up the salary, the standard of living and hopefully attract more Malaysians to work (in the plantations). It is a very sad condition. Despite the rise of commodity prices, people are living in abject poverty.

Traditionally MCA is very connected with the business associations and guilds. Is that still a good relationship?
We just had a big dialogue. I believe in facing people. A lot of leaders try to avoid dialogues. I always have dialogues everywhere I go. I don’t worry about people scolding me or scolding the government.

The younger generation do not identify themselves so much with the guilds and associations. They are moving away from this because they have no interest.

I just had a dialogue with young people in Batu Pahat and I will be meeting my Facebook fans in Ipoh tomorrow (June 8). I have 105,000 Facebook fans, and now and then I meet them.

How do you find these meetings?
I would say interesting. They are more articulate but the level of ignorance about government policy can be quite glaring.

Why is it important to Chinese to have representation in the government?
Because this is a multiracial country and the way that politics have been organised, you cannot have a mono-ethnic government,  a government that is made up of just one race. I said earlier that you cannot deny the fact that expectations, sensitivities, value systems of the Chinese and Malays are totally different. So don’t be naïve to say that I know everything about the Malays although I was born and bred in a Malay kampung.

You championed the rights of the estate workers. Shouldn’t it be issue-based instead?
That would be the very ideal system. That’s why I said, don’t be politically naïve. I am very frank. I have been in the government long enough to know that this is the idealism that people are talking about but in practice it is not.

For all Chinese problems, it is still MCA bringing it to the local authority, state government and federal government. When Chinese guilds and associations have problems, they still come and see us.

This is not good for us to think outside our racial box?
Well, we didn’t ask them to come and see [us]. They can go and see Umno. But everywhere in the world there is such a thing as the herd instinct. When you go out for supper who do you call? Let’s be honest. Why talk about idealism when you don’t even practise it yourself? Do you call your Malay friends or Indian friends or normally you look for your Chinese friends?

For me, when I am here, I always call a Chinese friend to go because of the question of the food to eat. It’s convenience, that’s all. It does not mean that I am anti-Malay. I’ve got many close Malay friends.

Why is it important to Chinese to be represented?
If you think it is not, [so be it]. That’s why we have made the decision that if we cannot get the support of the voters, we are not going to join the government.

There are some who perceived that as a threat.
No, it is not a threat. How can people be threatened into voting for you? That is a stupid statement to make. That is spinning by DAP to rubbish whatever MCA is doing.

We have to make this decision because we want to uplift the integrity of MCA. DAP will go and spin that whether MCA is elected in or not, they will have ministers. ‘Don’t worry about no ministers. There will always be Chinese ministers. MCA will go by the back door.’ They will quote the example of Gerakan. ‘The president lost and he is appointed senator and he gets in by the back door. Don’t worry about them. Just support DAP. MCA and Gerakan will be appointed.’

So this time we say that we don’t want to be appointed if we don’t receive [support]. Don’t you think that is integrity? Don’t you think we are respecting the decision of the voters? Don’t you think that whoever is perceived to be threatened are my members and leaders that if they don’t do well, they have no job. The number involved is 11,500.

So I hope this is clear. Whoever feels threatened are my own ministers, deputy ministers, exco members and councillors. They feel threatened because if they don’t do well, they have no chance to be appointed.

The Chinese are definitely not threatened. We also want to prove a point that MCA’s existence is not because of the four ministers.
When we say things, people don’t believe but when DAP says things people believe. Because they are men of honour and we are men of rubbish. That is the perception that the Chinese have of parties in government.

How do you get rid of this perception then?
I cannot get rid. I can only do my best. And the best is not good enough. I know. So we make the decision that the time has come that we should be brave enough that if we are not in, we get out.

Don’t you think this is an honourable thing? But it will be construed as a threat.

The perception outside is that this government can never do right. That includes MCA. Opposition party can never do wrong. This is the perception. Thank God. Congratulations. If this is the perception that people have, by all means [vote as you like].

But people never think that this is the same government that developed this country from Independence until today. And if this is a rubbish government as some people project it to be, do you think we [could] have achieved what we have achieved? Of course we can do better.

What have they done to convince the rakyat that they can do a better job? They have been in power and they have the chance to prove themselves. Have they proven? Have they lived up to expectations? You look at Kelantan. They have run Kelantan for over 20 years. Has Kelantan had an outstanding success? Has Kedah been an outstanding success in the last three years? Has Selangor been an outstanding success? Has Penang been an outstanding success?

People are tired over issues such as corruption and the inefficiency of the government. It is something that has to be rectified.
Yes. Are you telling me that there is no corruption in the PR state governments? Corruption exists everywhere. It is whether the government is doing anything about it. Reducing corruption is part of the government’s transformation programme.

Have not some of the biggest fish been arrested in the past one year, including two of my very senior leaders? But when they were arrested, they said its just for show. Do you think a person who is a Tun likes to be arrested for show? Come on, you have to fair to people. The government cannot arrest a Tun just for show. You know how much of honour and work he has done for the country and the party, and suddenly he is arrested and charged. Do you think it is for show?

People can be enchanted with the Opposition. Let it be. They have the right to choose. And the type of government and leader is decided by the people. You choose the type of government and leader that you want.

But before you choose, have a very rational, in medical terminology, we call it clinical, evaluation. And I always tell the people that when you vote BN with all its imperfections and weaknesses, at least you know the one vote you cast for BN, the one who is the PM is Datuk Seri Najib Razak, not the perfect man but at least he is trying to do his best.

If you vote for PR, can I ask you who is the PM, please? Can you tell me? Is it Lim Kit Siang? Is it Lim Guan Eng? Is it Nik Aziz? Is it Hadi Awang? Or is it Anwar Ibrahim? Which is which now?

So are Malaysians willing to cast their dice so to speak to vote for a party after they win, they will have a big meeting to decide who is the PM. Don’t you think that Malaysians have not done a proper evaluation? The PM is the one who will set the tone and direction of the country. He is the most powerful man. You don’t even know who it is and yet you are so gung-ho that it will be good.

It is just like you are going to marry a man. You have a dream that you have a good husband but you don’t even know who he is. And you are so excited that he will be the best husband. But you can’t even put a face and name to him.
This is not political spinning.

Let’s talk about Huaren Holdings. It has a big pile of cash now, so what is it going to do?
Since I became president, all party assets and investments have been run by an investment company. We don’t look after it anymore. They will come out with recommendations as to what we should do and based on the recommendation, we will make decisions.

Why is MCA linked to the Pan Malaysian Pools which is up for sale?
Because Malaysians like to feed on rumour mills. They enjoy rumour, spinning, exciting stories. So let it spin. Let it be. I would be very honoured if they write that MCA is interested to take over Genting Bhd.

But MCA had a hand in the gaming business previously. 
That was many many years ago. That is ancient history.

Is it political suicide for MCA to own a gaming business now?
I don’t think so, except we have never looked at it. We are not interested to buy. So why should we even comment? I already denied it. The story should end there.

There were reports that Genting was buying it on MCA’s behalf.
Thank you. We should thank Genting for being so kind and generous.

The Star is gearing up. What are its plans?
I don’t know. We let Star run as a professional body. That is why it is not an organ of MCA, and MCA should not interfere with Star. We are very firm on this.

But you have just appointed Tan Sri Fong Chan Onn as chairman.
What is wrong with that? He is a non-executive chairman. He brings to the board a wealth of experience in the government and academic world. When it is non-executive position, they say it is like ribbon cutting.

When I was active, the previous president tried to appoint me, I said ‘no’. Because when I am active I should [say no]. Fong is active as an MP, and not politically active, aspiring to hold office. He is not. And I feel he is an asset to the party because it is not easy to find people with administrative and academic credentials. 

This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, June 13, 2011.