MCA: Get the emotional connection going

The MCA almost lost its underpants in the General Elections of 2008.

With GE13 looming its luminaries are attempting (belatedly) to enter into cyberspace more aggressively.

The MCA has also offered to buy Menara Multi-Purpose in KL as a long-term investment.

What do these two disparate actions mean?

Let's not forget the cat-calling and trading of barbs between the ex-President and the sitting President.

I'm not about to psychoanalyse the MCA. That would be the stuff of serious academic analysis. I will not presume to trivialise a political institution as important as the MCA.

Yes, the MCA is a political institution. It has a long and distinguished history. Hell, "renegade" MCA guys like Ong Yoke Lin in the KL Branch went against Tan Cheng Lock in 1951 to tie-up with UMNO at a time when Onn Jaafar's Independence of Malaya Party was the preferred flavour of the British colonial administration. Historical records confirm this.

So, how the heck did MCA's leaders lose the plot? How did they get the party so emasculated that it is now a mere eunuch? 

During the 1974 General Elections (yes, the one where all Chinese Malaysians were entreated to the photo-op of Tun Razak shaking hands with Chairman Mao), my father's car was festooned with mini BN flags. My father was an MCA Branch Chairman.

Where is this leading to?

I think I read somewhere that the MCA has a net asset worth in excess of RM2 billion (or, maybe more).

With that kind of deep pockets, the MCA can spend on some serious marketing and advertising campaign.

This is no time to be parsimonious. 

Come GE13, the MCA will be fighting for its political life.

It's time to sprinkle some magic dust.

My humble suggestion to the great egos at the MCA (yes, I've met some of them. And, yes, I did have to look up to the heavens for some of them. Though, to be fair, many MCA leaders were suitably modest...which is one of the minor reasons why I'm even bothering to write this.) is to consider an advertising and public relations campaign.

MCA has the financial resources. It has deep enough pockets to execute a good pre-GE13 campaign.

Whatever MCA has been doing to-date is too little and too lost in the cacophony of Malaysian politics.

And, by the way, getting nubile young Wanita MCA lasses to do tweets won't be enough. They'll either be too cheesy and effusive or, worse, become tweet-bitches if they are too aggressive. 

What the MCA needs is to tell its story.

The MCA story needs to be told at several levels.

To the mature demographic, the emotional connection is to MCA's role in the founding of the nation. Hearken back to the days when the MCA had Ministers holding substantive portfolios such as Trade and Commerce and Finance. Apart from the populace, there's no harm reminding big brother UMNO that when there was an MCA guy in charge, the Finance portfolio was well-run.

To the middle-class demographic, the MCA needs to create an emotional connection.

To the entry-level voting demographic, the MCA needs to provide an edgy message beyond just whacking the DAP and whacking hudud. The MCA has to go beyond making lame appeals to UMNO. The MCA has to realise that saying that there will be no MCA Ministerial representation if it gets less than the number of seats it currently has won't cut it with the voters.

The entry-level voting demographic needs to get an emotional connection with the MCA. They need to get beyond the cynical view that everyone who joins the MCA is in it for the money alone and, everything else are platitudes.

I don't have the answers as to what emotional messages need to be created. Nobody is paying me to think that hard about the MCA! 

I can only give clues. 

By the way, although my father was an MCA Branch Chairman many, many moons ago, I don't have any emotional connection to the MCA. I felt something momentarily in the late 1980s. But, since then I've lost it. Nada. Nothing.

But, wait a minute, the fact that I constantly write about the MCA, UMNO and BN, less about the DAP and Pakatan, should give you a clue.

Needless to say, I am jaded with BN as a whole because of Perkasa and PPSMI. Both matters reek of manipulative opportunism by a desperate BN machinery. The rakyat can see through the ruse and, they ain't buyin.

My humble view is that there was never any need for BN "to go there" - to the darkest recesses of the Malaysian psyche.

So, back to the MCA.

The MCA needs to ratchet up its emotional connection to Malaysians, Chinese or otherwise.

That's the key...the emotional connection.

Get the message right and Malaysians like me may give it a real, hard look.