MIC PRESIDENT RACE : DATO SOTHI - wait-and-see game : MALAYSIAKINI

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 31 (Bernama) -- The MIC has postponed the elections for its top posts, except that of president, to September next year, according to party sources.

They reveal that the decision to move the party polls from June to September was taken at a meeting of the MIC central working committee (CWC), the party's highest decision-making body, earlier this month.

However, the election for the post of president would go on as scheduled in late February next year, the sources told Bernama.

Long-serving president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, who took over the leadership of the party in 1979 and has retained the post for 10 consecutive terms, is the only candidate so far to announce his intention to contest the top post.

Tamil newspapers earlier this month quoted him as saying he would hand over the MIC to whosoever was picked as the deputy president at the party polls this time around.

Although the last party elections were held in June 2006, the MIC constitution allows for the CWC to defer the election of top office-bearers for a period of 18 months. The nearly 1,500 divisional delegates would, at the polls now set for September next year, pick a deputy president, three vice-presidents and 23 CWC members.

Compared to other political parties in the country, the MIC has a different system in electing its national office-bearers. The presidential election is held at least three months ahead of the elections for the other posts. The president, in the case of a contest, is picked by branch office-bearers while other national leaders are picked by divisional delegates.

The deputy presidency seems to be the all-important post this time around as observers feel that the man who fills this post would lead the 650,000-member MIC into the next general election.

Another school of thought says Samy Vellu might decline going for the presidency if he can strike a deal among the big players in MIC politics before February next year, but this is unlikely to happen taking into account the political ambitions of a few in the upper hierarchy of the party.

"Things are very unclear now. Nobody knows what is going on in his (Samy Vellu's) mind. It is all a guessing game. Only time will tell who he would endorse as his deputy, if he ever endorses anyone," party veteran and treasurer-general Tan Sri M. Mahalingam told Bernama, when contacted.

Many in the party, without voicing out, prefer Samy Vellu to leave and let democracy take its course. This is, however, rebutted by the 72-year-old leader, who says he does not want to leave the party in disarray due to political infighting after his departure as the president.

The MIC, like other Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties in the peninsula, suffered a bruising defeat in the March 8 general election when only three of its nine parliamentary candidates won.

The three are Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam (Segamat), who is the human resource minister and MIC secretary-general; Datuk M. Saravanan (Tapah), the federal territories deputy minister and MIC information chief; and Datuk S. K. Devamany (Cameron Highlands), deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department.

Dr Subramanian is seen as potential deputy president material. Others expected by party observers to join the contest for deputy president are Datuk S. Subramaniam, the former deputy president; Datuk G. Palanivel, the incumbent deputy president and Datuk S. Sothinathan, an incumbent vice-president.

It is learnt that Dr Subramaniam will only contest the party's No. 2 post with the blessings of Samy Vellu while the other three are playing a wait-and-see game.

Samy Vellu, one of the longest-serving presidents of a BN component party, had said after his defeat in the Sungai Siput parliamentary constituency in the general election and in an effort to consolidate the MIC that he would not take sides in the deputy president's race.

It has been the norm in the party, over the last two decades, for the MIC chief to come up with a list of preferred candidates for national positions and this practice, some claim, had "killed democracy" in the party.

At the last elections, he proposed that Palanivel be given the endorsement for deputy president to overthrow Subramaniam who had served as the party No. 2 for 27 years prior to the 2006 party election defeat.

In a bid to "strengthen" the party, Samy Vellu has since patched up with Subramaniam, who had been a thorn in Samy Vellu's flesh since the mid-1970s, and the "deal" was that the MIC chief would not take sides at the next party polls, especially in the tussle for deputy president.

"He (Samy Vellu) created Palanivel to kill off Subramaniam (known in party circles as Subra). Now he has both of them on each side. On top of that, he has Dr Subramaniam, who is a full minister. To add icing to the cake, Sothinathan, who garnered the highest number of votes in the veep race the last time around, is knocking at the door of the deputy presidency.

"But one cannot discount other candidates, like Saravanan who is seen by the community as a breath of fresh air. Young leaders like him and several others are breaking into the ranks. They too have ideas which they feel are relevant to the younger generation and current political trend in the country," said S. Ananthan, the MIC president's former political secretary.

However, Ananthan argues that it is time for the MIC to change, not only through a rebranding exercise but also from inside, meaning changing the leadership.

"If you see, the entire line-up, may it be Samy Vellu, Subra, Palanivel or even Sothi(nathan), are old names. The general election results told MIC a lot of things but they should learn lessons instead of continuing with their old ways. Putting up a list of preferred candidates will destroy the party.

"Indians want to support the MIC but the party itself should reinvent the way it operates. It has to offer something to the Indians. That is the difficult part. Indians want the party to show that it has changed for the good," Ananthan said.

The point is valid as Malaysian Indian voters turned their backs on the BN at the 2008 general election, a departure from the hitherto traditional way of the community throwing its entire support behind the ruling coalition. The reasons for the community to turn away from the BN are numerous and the MIC should partly take the blame for this state of affairs.

The future of Indian support for the party hinges on who are picked as its national leaders at the next party polls as the elected leaders would be the ones leading the 62-year-old party into the next general election.

-- BERNAMA