While the victory of a female non-Chinese lawyer, Rhina Bhar in the women's wing of the Chinese-predominated multi-ethnic Gerakan was a real surprise, the return of the incumbent deputy president of the national committee, lawyer Kerk Choo Ting has been widely expected.

Kerk garnered 892 votes against his challenger, Siew Kok Kan who obtained 368 votes. Translated into percentage, the relative or proportional strengths between Kerk and Siew are 70.8 percent to:29.2 percent. What do the results show or indicate?

From the contest of deputy presidency, the sign is unmistakable. A significant or at least noticeable number of voting delegates was not happy with Kerk, and they voted for Siew in protest. The 29.2 percent protest votes could also come secretly from some overzealous supporters of Penang Chief Minister Dr Koh Tsu Koon although Koh as well as president, Dr Lim Keng Yaik had publicly expressed their support for Kerk.

The result has certainly paved the way for Koh to take on Kerk in the post-Lim period, if Koh harbours the ambition to become president of the party.

Siew, meanwhile, can take pride in the fact that, despite all the odds against him as a rebel who was seen by conservatives to be 'rocking the boat', and without the political aura and material advantages of incumbency, he still managed to gain 29.2 percent support of the national delegates to serve as a humbling check and balance against Kerk's power and influence.

In any case, the return of Kerk can in no way be interpreted as an ideological victory of multiracialism or multiculturalism. Kerk has in fact always been regarded as the 'Chinese soul' in the Chinese-predominated multi-ethnic party that competes with the mono-ethnic Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) for Chinese legitimacy and 'correctness' within the Umno-dominated National Front.

Mastery of Chinese

Given that intra-party expectations and Kerk's personal backgrounds as a Chinese-language poet, writer and leader of Dong Jiao Zong, Kerk's ascendance could be a cause of worry and anxiety for MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik.

As compared to Ling, Kerk's mastery of the Chinese language and knowledge of Chinese cultures and traditions enable him to read the minds and explore the political psyche of the Chinese-educated Malaysians, especially the older generation, more directly.

Ling's MCA, of course, has the tangible advantage of more money, media power and allocated seats to offset the intangible influence of culture and tradition of Kerk's puny Gerakan.

However, Kerk's greatest dilemma seems to be that his party, although Chinese-predominated, is supposed to be multi-ethnic and multicultural. For him, too strong a Chinese slant would certainly compromise the ideological foundation of the party, but without being perceived or felt to be Chinese 'enough', Kerk would be suspected to have compromised with Umno on vital issues affecting the Chinese community.

After all, despite its unilateral claim to be multi-ethnic and multicultural, Gerakan's membership and leadership is still made up of more than 85 percent Chinese Malaysians, with a few Indians and almost no noticeable Malay/Muslim, reflecting the fact that it is still really a 'mini-MCA'. While Malays/Muslims make up about 60 percent of the Malaysian population, Chinese and Indians only constitute about 25 percent and 10 percent respectively.

It is unlikely that Chinese- or Indian-predominated multi-ethnic and multicultural parties like Gerakan, DAP or PPP would be able to attract any significant number of Malays/Muslims as Umno, PAS, Keadilan and PRM have offered almost a complete range of ideological choices in politics.

Positive development

In fact, as the language switch controversy has evidenced, the political pressure for Gerakan comes not only from mono-ethnic MCA, but also the Malay/Muslim-based multi-ethnic opposition parties like PAS, Keadilan and PRM, which can also take up the causes of Chinese, Tamil and mother tongue education as national and non-racial issue.

Given these changed and changing scenarios in Malaysian politics, Rhina Bhar's victory over Kee Phaik Cheen is not as spectacular and significant as some Gerakan leaders believe it to be, although it is still a positive development and a legitimate cause for Rhina to feel personally honoured, recognised and rewarded for her political merit.

Other parties have done it in a more spectacular and impressive manner. For example, in the party elections held last year, the delegates of the Malay-predominated opposition Keadilan also elected Dr.Lee Boon Chye, Dr.Xavier Jayakumar, lawyer Cheah Kah Peng and businessman Ng Num Yong as members of the party's supreme council.

Lawyers Christina Liew and Gooi Hock Seng were also appointed national treasurer and member of the supreme council later. Keadilan's Youth and Women wings are also rather multi-ethnic. While there is a Chinese Muslim in the state cabinet in the PAS-ruled Kelantan, the Trengganu government, also headed by PAS, is amending to State Constitution to appoint non-Muslims to be legislators, if none is elected popularly.

Rhina's distinguishing feature seems to be her record of speaking up, once or twice, against the Internal Security Act (ISA) and Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) together with some other more liberal-minded party leaders such as central executive member and Penang state executive councillor, Dr Toh Kin Woon. It did inspire some liberal hopes in the party among some members of the young, educated and progressive middle classes.

However, events later have proven that liberal-minded leaders in Gerakan are not as strong, numerically and politically, as the old and established conservatives like president Lim and deputy president Kerk who support the laws that are increasingly seen as oppressive and arbitrary by Malaysians, including vernacular-educated ones. For a while, there has not been any Gerakan voice suggesting any concerns for human rights, police abuse and judicial integrity and independence,

Two sets of question

Kerk's ascendance means that the conservative forces in Gerakan will continue to dominate, while the more liberal-minded individuals continue to play the role of 'safety valves' for liberal grievances to be publicly aired, but the illiberal structure of grievances remained intact.

In the ultimate analysis, there are two fundamental sets of question that Gerakan have to answer for themselves in order for its political identity to be seen as firm and unambiguous.

First, is it an essentially Chinese party that compete only with MCA and DAP, or a multi-ethnic and multicultural party whose structures of leadership and membership reflect the national reality of Malaysia? What efforts will be made to recruit more Malay/Muslim, Indian and other Malaysians into its membership and leadership?

What are the obstacles posed by Umno, MCA and MIC to Gerakan's transformation into a genuinely multi-ethnic party that reflects the national reality? Is it willing and able to field more non-Chinese candidates in the coming general election, especially in Penang?

Second, is it a liberal and progressive party that opposes laws which are seen to be illiberal and oppressive, or a party of conservative do-gooders that only provides authoritarianism with a 'human face'? How can a liberal party co-exist with the authoritarian ethno-nationalists that see universal human rights as 'Western'?

Without being clearly multi-ethnic and uncompromisingly liberal, Gerakan will continue to serve only as an Umno's leverage in its domestic balance-of-power games against MCA and the opposition parties and forces. For self-perception, it may be seen as only 'being reasonable, moderate and responsible', but others may prefer to term it 'wishy-washy opportunism'.

The great ability to articulate and present issues in apolitical and functional languages can never conceal its actual positioning in the real structure of power politics in Malaysia.

However, even given the confusion of political identities, Gerakan remains a ruling party whose image is relatively clean, and its behaviour and utterances more decent and less turbulent. The contrasts are, of course, Umno and MCA that dominate the National Front, the coalition under whose logo Gerakan campaigns in elections.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia. Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew, he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.