MCA winning hearts with personal touch
He listened to their problems, offered a diagnosis and dispensed prescriptions, quick and simple. No over-indulgence in small talk, no time-wasting chats as he goes to the next patient.
Im a doctor. Im clinical, efficient and able to settle problems. What I promise, I deliver, Dr Chua told the New Straits Times during a whirlwind meet-the-people session, which included pitstops at three Hindu temples, a luncheon with MCA grassroots members and meetings with residents.
The walkabouts are part of his periodic, nationwide meetings with people to understand and resolve their problems.
It is this diagnose-and-prescribe formula that Dr Chua hopes will improve the fortunes of the countrys largest Chinese-based party.
After all, it has worked hard since its poor performance in the 2008 general election, where it lost 25 of the 40 parliamentary and 59 of the 90 state seats it contested.
Led by Dr Chua, who has managed to consolidate the party after a protracted leadership crisis, the renewed MCA has engaged civil society and associations, set up foundations to provide financial aid to students and patients, helped resolve issues and, at the same! time, b ecome more vocal either through its verbal brawls with the opposition or by ticking off its Barisan Nasional partners.
All these are done with one underlining hope that Malaysians will give the party another chance at the next general election, which must be called by 2013.
MCA was abandoned by voters after it was deemed to have done little to defend the Chinese communitys interests.
Upon taking the reins of the party in March 28 last year, Dr Chua and his colleagues have worked hard to dispel that perception.
The party is on the right track. From the feedback we received, there is a marked difference in peoples response to us now as compared with two years ago, said vice-president Datuk Chor Chee Heung.
Observers believe the party has nothing to lose by going all out to woo people, especially the 6.5 million Chinese community who have high demands and expectations.
MCA is fighting back but whether (all their efforts) will translate into votes remains to be seen. Put it this way, if they dont go all out, they will be worse off than before, said Rita Sim, the co-founder of the Centre for Strategic Engagement think tank.
The party is banking on its one million members as the first step in clawing its way back to relevancy.
It is an open secret that in the 2008 polls, members deserted the party and instead voted for the opposition.
By constantly wooing, cajoling, prodding and threatening the rank and file, the leadership is trying to impress upon them the coming general election will be a do-or-die battle for the party.
As it is, there is a sense of complacency among the grassroots, who place more importance on posts than the outcome of the general election.
They failed to look at the bigger picture. Thats our biggest problem, said a frustrated Dr Chua.
As such, the former health minister had taken the unconventional route of warning members that MCA will not take up government posts if it performs badly at the next elections, a move tha! t involv es more than 11,000 positions.
MCAs primary vote bank is its members. All its activities and even the no-posts warning is to rally members and consolidate MCA votes, said Sim.
The party is also training its guns on fence-sitters, estimated to be between 30 and 40 per cent of the nations 11.4 million voters.
It has commanded members to ditch the usual big dinners and long speeches for small intimate gatherings to endear themselves to voters and understand their problems.
It has directed each member to get at least one non-member to vote for BN, a strategy that was adopted during the March 6 Merlimau by-election and had proven to be successful.
Fence-sitters are important because there might be areas where we only have a 50-50 chance of winning. Therefore, they will be the deciding factor, said MCA Klang division chief Datuk Teh Kim Poh.
MCA Youth strategic research bureau chief Neil Foo Seck Chyn, concurred, saying that the party, together with its BN partners, had come up with concrete steps to address voters needs.
In citing examples, he said low salaries and high cost of living chief concerns of urbanites led BN Youth to hold job fairs and home ownership expositions.
We are hopeful people can see our sincerity. I wont say well get results overnight but at least we took concrete actions rather than just talk.
While Malay and Indian votes are said to be streaming back to BN, Chinese voters are said to remain cool towards the governing coalition.
However, it must be noted that the Chinese have always been quite anti-establishment and even in the best of times, BN only managed to net between 35 and 40 per cent of Chinese votes.
The polar opposites of two distinct groups among the Chinese traditional and bananas (Westernised Chinese) left MCA with the unenviable task of catering to their needs.
Both groups can have opposite demands on the same issues and this often leaves the party in a fix.
For example, in education, the trad! itional Chinese welcomed the governments move to abolish the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English (PPSMI).
But their Westernised counterparts were insistent that the policy be reinstated.
How can MCA make itself attractive to both groups? That itself is something the party needs to figure out, Sim said.
Despite the uphill task in pleasing the Chinese community, Teh insisted the mindset among them had changed.
Dr Chua is vocal and people can see that MCA is brave now to voice out its views. I was at a coffee shop in Klang this morning and there were a few patrons praising the party.
-NST Comment-
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