Lim Kit Siang's Challenger

From MB to underdog in his own state, Ghani risks losing all by taking on Golliath

The crazy Johorean underdog vs the marauding DAP old dog. Quite clearly, even the combined genius of Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang did not see it coming. They thought they had a perfect plan: send in the DAP strongman to raid Gelang Patah and set up a Chinese vs Chinese showdown. There are more Chinese voters in GP than Malays, Indians and other races combined and the DAP knew that if it could make it into a racial and hardcore all-Chinese hand-to-hand combat, the MCA wouldn't stand a chance. It's DAP's niche, and Kit Siang's forte.

They didn't count on BN sending in an Umno candidate to "challenge" Kit Siang. And certainly not Ghani Othman the Menteri Besar himself, the state BN chief. Sending Kit Siang to GP was described as a brave thing. Ghani's bravery is best described (and has been described h e r e) as crazy.

I was first told of Ghani's intention to meet Kit Siang at GP a few weeks ago when I was in Muar, the "royal town". After Anwar confidently announced that Kit Siang was going to GP to spearhead Pakatan's assault on the Umno frontier, the Johor Menteri Besar called for a meeting in his war room the assess the situation. He was informed that Kit Siang and Anwar intended to turn the general elections in Johor into a "bloody racial affair" by sending DAP candidates after every MCA seat. Ghani, the quintessential Johor-Malaysian, said he wished to avoid any scenario that could make the state more racially polarised. And with that he took it upon himself to take on Kit Siang.

And screws up Anwar-Kit Siang's original plan.

Plan B now, ladies and gentlemen, is to condemn MCA for "lending out" Chinese seats (like Gelang Patah) to Umno and MIC. We will find it funny, of course, since PKR, DAP and PAS swap seats all the time, too. Read MCA, lending out seats, lives on borrowed time? Hard to miss the racial and racist connotations, right? 

MCA president Chua Soi Lek can also expect to be crucified upside down and politically buggered repeatedly from now until Nominations Day and from then until Polling Day for dropping "rakyat-friendly" leaders like Ong Tee Keat.  But to accuse the MCA president (who isn't contesting, either) of intolerant of dissent is another laughable concept because that's what the DAP has been about all this while. 

To be frank, I am disappointed to learn that OTK would not be making mincemeat of Rafizi Ramli (PKR) in Pandan. But as the president of his party, CSL has to do what a president has to do. He thinks Tee Keat is not a team player, too individualistic, that's his discretion. At least we know that if he's wrong, CSL will own up later. The thing is, Kit Siang would have done what CSL just did much earlier, and he would have done it in the name the party and would have accused Tee Keat of showing insufficient love for the party.