COMMENT The move to charge Dr Ling Liong Sik caught many of us completely by surprise, not because we think the former MCA president is too clean to be associated with corruption, but because we still believe that the police, the Attorney-General and the judiciary are all in Barisan Nasional’s pocket and would not act against a figure so intimately connected to the ruling coalition and so prominent in its history.
A pundit has described Ling’s prosecution in connection with the PKFZ scandal as the bursting of a bubble in a whirlpool of speculation involving high-profile politicians.
Certainly, the PKFZ corruption scandal will be in the public focus again, and it is likely to overshadow all other political bickering in the weeks to come, particularly when Ling’s case is mentioned in August.
Few will deny that the case will cast a long dark shadow over MCA, which is desperately trying to woo back the public support it has so badly lost in recent years.
There is even speculation that another important figure in MCA—a former cabinet minister—will be charged along with Ling.
Another former minister and MCA official who served under Ling expressed astonishment over the latest turn of events.
Choosing his words carefully as he spoke to FMT, he said the singling out of Ling was shocking because he could not have been alone in making decisions about PKFZ.
“Some party members knowledgeable about top government decision-making practice are sceptical because whatever decision made was collective, assisted by experts who act as advisers,” he said without elaborating.
Of course, views expressed within MCA are in great contrast to those in the public domain, where the call for truth, transparency and justice is getting louder by the day. Most of the public want to hear the bone crunch of dog devouring dog.
Jinxed leadership
The more superstitious among MCA watchers have become more convinced that the party’s leadership is jinxed. They see in Ling’s predicament a repeat of what happened to then-president Tan Koon Swan in 1986, when he was charged and imprisoned for criminal breach of trust over the Pan El saga.
Ling was a young physician when he got into active politics. He won the Mata Kuching parliamentary seat in 1974 and rose to replace Tan on the MCA throne 12 years later.
Some interpret the downfall of Tan and Ling as parallel defining moments that have more meaning than expressed in the cliché that history repeats itself.
“Even till today, many within the party still believe that the prosecution and imprisonment of former president Tan was politically motivated,” a Selangor leader said.
Could this be another case of political intrigue and a parable of extreme ruthlessness at play? This is what many party members are wondering, sometimes aloud, for hardly a week goes by nowadays when someone in MCA does not speak up against an unpopular political move attributed to either Umno or one of its perceived proxies.
Indeed, MCA, in trying to regain support, has lately been critical of more than the opposition. Some say the leadership has finally admitted that times have changed, with the electorate become wiser, and the party has begun listening closely to the ground.
The move against Ling, they say, could be designed to derail the party’s effort at rebuilding its image.
Many believe that the current MCA president, Dr Chua Soi Lek, is a close ally of Ling and that Ling, despite his retirement, has been dispensing advice to the leadership whenever his views are sought.
But it is early days yet, and we should not take our own speculations too seriously. Perhaps, in the ensuing days, it will become clearer why BN wants Ling to take a fall over the PKFZ scandal which, more than many other misdeeds, has deepened public contempt for the government.
Perhaps, the government will even explain its sudden move.
No stranger to trouble
Meanwhile, Ling and his family are quite alone in facing this terrible challenge. But Ling is no stranger to trouble. He faced many challenges during his 17-year political career, including being sacked from his party in 1984, although the membership was reinstated a year later.
He also faced two major efforts to topple him from the presidency. He was involved in colourful Mexican stand-offs with his deputies, Lee Kim Sai in the late 80s, and Lim Ah Lek in the 1990s.
“Dr Ling has a straightforward, patriotic honesty which has distinguished him from several of his past and current brothers-in-politics,” wrote a newspaper columnist in 2000.
In fact, Ling does have an impressive legacy of achievements at party leader. For example, he saved Wisma MCA amid serious financial woes and resolved the cooperative crisis soon after Tan Koon Swan’s premature retirement.
Between 1987 and 1988, Ling fought relentlessly to help about half a million depositors—most of whom were MCA members—get their ringgit-to-ringgit refunds following the collapse of 24 deposit-taking cooperatives, including MCA’s KSM.
He also initiated many fund-raising campaigns, including the invention of the MCA Life Membership roll, which survives to this day.
While his supporters praise him for putting sectarian or communal interest aside and concentrating on nation-building programmes, his adversaries accuse him of having been too deeply and too overtly loyal to his boss, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
But many have forgotten that in 1988, Ling took a six-week no-pay leave from his duties as transport minister to protest against the BN’s broken promises to his party over a proposed amendment of the Education Act, the establishment of Tunku Abdul Rahman College, the quit rent for Bukit Cina, the lopsided civil service, financial allocations to new villages, quotas in university intakes, aid to Chinese schools and several other issues.
“I am taking leave of absence from my position as a cabinet minister to reflect on the party’s position in the BN and to think about the post-1990 shaping of the country and the changing role cum responsibilities of the MCA to meet the new challenges,” Ling said in a press statement on Oct 1, 1988.
A string of achievements
Soon after he became party president in 1986, he told an interviewer: “I want to see Malaysia become a fair and just country for all. All issues will be viewed from this angle because the vast majority of people will reject Malaysia becoming a Malay, Chinese or Indian country.
“Every fibre in me is moderate in nature. There will be no extremism in party policies. We (MCA leadership) will strive to inject moderation into government policies. Our sole objective is to make Malaysia a fair and just society for all.”
After serving MCA for 17 years, Ling finally had to step down in May 23, 2003, under a cloud of controversy involving business dealings, compounded by a protracted tiff with his deputy Lim Ah Lek.
Deputy Lim also stepped down under a peace formula embraced mutually by factional leaders as a way to resolving the leadership feud, which top Umno leaders, acting as peacekeepers, closely monitored.
Ling led the MCA party through thick and thin during his long tenure, including the general elections of 1986, 1990, 1995 and 1999.
Perhaps he made his greatest achievement in 2001, when the Education Ministry gave him and his team the green light to establish University Tunku Abdul Rahman, named after the first Malaysian prime minister.
He has also recorded a string of other achievements on education, including the setting up of more than 100 resource centres under the umbrella of the Langkawi Project to promote educational excellence among poor children.
Developing education became his forte as early as in 1994, when he launched a massive fund-raising campaign to help the 60 independent Chinese secondary schools.
Despite all his merits, however, Ling made several big blunders in his career.
For example, his role in the dismantling of MCA’s assets, which Tan Koon Swan had painstakingly built up in the 1980s under Multi-Purpose Holdings, earned him many unforgiving enemies.
The Nanyang sale
Perhaps his greatest failed political gamble was his push in 2001 to purchase the Nanyang Siang Pau group of companies, which even today is being cursed by Malaysians yearning for press freedom.
Even in the last days of his political career, he continued to make controversial misjudgements, particularly on the leadership succession in MCA.
Many resented the favouritism he showed towards Ong Ka Ting, deliberately bypassing the democratic process to make him his successor. His critics must have felt some satisfaction when MCA, under Ong’s leadership, suffered a great setback in the 2008 general election.
Those who prefer to keep fond memories of Ling’s style of leadership will cherish the way a writer has summed up his character:
“After all, Dr Ling has proved he is a leader with a difference, some difference.
“His strongest point is that he is a balanced person. His background, temperament and attitude are conducive to breaking down racial barriers.”
And as he faces prosecution in court, it is well for Ling himself to remember the words that , according to him, summed up his philosophy: “Today is always better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today.”
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