PETALING JAYA, Nov 6 — Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong may be a political veteran but even he will struggle for ideas on how to turn MCA around.
He became the party’s president on Sunday but that challenge pales in comparison to his task now of steering the party back to relevance.
Wee is MCA’s sole federal lawmaker and the living embodiment of the party’s gradual decline culminating in Barisan Nasional’s (BN) general election defeat.
His party won just two state seats out of the 129 contested and lost in 38 out of the 39 parliamentary seats on May 9.
MCA is now looking to him for leadership.
For Wee, the good news — and the bad — is that he must start from zero and cannot afford to just rebrand the party.
He should consider changing the party’s name to show that it now represents the masses and more diverse objectives than before.
He also needs to assert MCA’s independence from Umno and rid the party of the perceived subservience that turned Chinese voters away from it.
However, leaving BN could invite allegations of ingratitude.
This leaves Wee in a dilemma. He won his Ayer Hitam seat due to the votes of Malays still loyal to Umno and BN. He needs to consider this with his plans for MCA.
His mission to restore MCA will not be easy.
Wooing back Chinese support will also not be easy. The community already has an able representative in DAP that is currently in power.
The Chinese community also has the option of PKR, the party of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who is styled as the next prime minister.
Wee must carve out a new niche for MCA in a political landscape that has no room for the old party that represented Chinese towkays and carried water for Umno.
