I find the remarks made in your report "Chinese may force Umno to work with PAS: MCA Senator" (Jan 17) by senator Ho Lim Teck (MCA's political training bureau chief) as to why Chinese voters should support the ruling coalition in Indera Kayangan by-election insensitive and not so intelligent.

The senator asked "If the Chinese shatter their (Umno's) hope, then what kind of policy will they make to protect themselves?"

The remark that Umno's hopes depended on Chinese votes is most patronising of Umno's credentials as champions of Malays!

The reported remark that "Umno's continued rule of the country rests on Chinese voters based on the last election" is insensitive because it compromises Umno's image.

What's more, the remark is not true because in the last general elections all component parties of the BN helped deliver the votes, (so please don't overrate Chinese votes) and had it not been for the Malay and other communities voters, Umno's rule (notwithstanding support of Chinese voters) would equally not be continued.

For the good senator to say that if Umno did not get support of Chinese voters, it would work with PAS (since both parties have similarities in religion, language, culture and race) or "may draft policies which are more extreme than PAS' in order to regain its footing among the Malay-Muslims "is to insinuate that Umno is totally opportunistic, has no ideology of its own other than power, and for the sake of which, it will be willing to collaborate with its ideological adversary in the same way it criticised DAP in the past for doing!

Besides, the whole tenor of his speech to a crowd of some 1,000 Chinese voters at a Indera Kayangan by-election campaign dinner function organised by MCA Youth was to pitch for Chinese voters' support based on their fear of PAS' extremism. The implicit threat was that if "you do not cast the votes for Umno it would work with PAS or be as extreme".

Considering that it is MCA that fields the candidate in Indera Kayangan and not Umno, it is pathetic that the MCA's political training bureau chief could not give to the Chinese voters a better reason for their support based on what MCA and its candidate could do for them rather than that of preventing Umno from misbehaving like PAS.

This merely insinuates the impotence of MCA whose candidate's credentials have to depend on Umno's moderate behaviour rather than MCA's achievements.

So indirectly, what the MCA's political training bureau chief had said undermined the image of both Umno and his own party MCA. It was not very intelligent for him to talk along these lines unless it was deliberate to match the level of receptivity of his target audience.

But then again, patronising the intelligence of your audience is not a very wise thing to do if you are canvassing for their votes.