Kula must stick to his guns
The decision of Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran to decline a position that entailed a demotion for him in the new DAP state line-up came as a relief to those who were worried about the stranglehold on the party wielded by the cousins, Ngeh Hoo Kam and Nga Kor Ming.
With his penchant for whining in private and then taking up an accommodating public stance at odds with his personal gripes, there were fears that Kulasegaran would accept the olive branch offered by the cousins in the latest edition of Perak DAP’s recurrent internecine battles.
This time, however, the lawyer decided to be resolute...
The decision of Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran to decline a position that entailed a demotion for him in the new DAP state line-up came as a relief to those who were worried about the stranglehold on the party wielded by the cousins, Ngeh Hoo Kam and Nga Kor Ming.
With his penchant for whining in private and then taking up an accommodating public stance at odds with his personal gripes, there were fears that Kulasegaran (centre in photo) would accept the olive branch offered by the cousins in the latest edition of Perak DAP’s recurrent internecine battles.
This time, however, the lawyer decided to be resolute - he declined state chief Ngeh’s offer of a position in the DAP Perak line-up that was a notch below his previously held deputyship.
Ngeh (right) and Nga (below) managed to peg Kula to a lowly 17th position in the pecking order at last weekend’s state part polls, a serious slide from his table topping perch at the 2008 outing, a performance that piqued the Foochow cousins.
This time the cousins - who if unchecked would be DAP’s version of the Kuomintang warlords that helped bring down Chiang Kai-shek in China’s civil war of the 1920-40s - rigged the odds in their favour by blindsiding Kulasegaran and compatriot Thomas Su on the creation of new branches staffed with their proxies.
Accusations of Chinese chauvinism
These are the tactics of the territorial barons who helped bring down the Democratic Party in their bastion of New York in the United States in the 1920-40s. Ward barons, allowed control of their bailiwick, decided who would sit as governor of the state in Tammany Hall.
These tactics are a recipe for the promotion of mediocrity and corruption.
Too often, and sometimes unfairly, the DAP has been tarred with the brush of Chinese chauvinism. Party elder Lim Kit Siang and especially his secretary-general son, Guan Eng, have in their separate ways tried to prevent this accusation from sticking.
The survival of Kulasegaran as a credible Indian Malaysian leader in the DAP depends on his stature in Perak DAP.
Sure, he does not have the late P Patto’s multi-lingual oratorical prowess, but he is what the party presently has.
His spurious diminishment by the Kinta cousins, employing the tactics of ward barons, should not be allowed because it will make more difficult the task of changing the image of the party as Chinese dominated and infested with territorial barons.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.
