DAP has clearly stolen the show from MCA lately. A few months back, Tony Pua, an Oxford graduate and former CEO of a public listed IT company, officially joined the DAP, which created a bit of a stir among the Chinese community.

Just last Tuesday, Jeff Ooi, the godfather of Malaysian blogging, finally took the plunged and crossed over to the DAP from Gerakan, a member of the ruling BN.

Having got through its lowest point in history in the wake of the reformasi movement, when droves of young Malaysian chose the multiracial Parti Keadilan over the Chinese-based DAP, the party is now enjoying a reinvigoration, its fortune having turned around since the last elections in 2004.

The MCA, founded with a mission to represent and safeguard the interests of the Chinese Malaysian community, cannot afford to appear feeble. But the Chinese party is caught in a self-made dilemma. The Chinese see no reason to be grateful when the MCA successfully defends their rights, but there will be hell to pay should it fail to make good of its electoral promises.

Worse, it has never been a secret that the MCA is expendable so long as Umno is in a dominant position. Acutely aware of its own constraints and limitations, the MCA is constantly on a lookout for ways to prove to the Chinese community its legitimacy despite its being a "ruling" party. Unable to offer something original and innovative, the MCA has no option but to search in haste some fresh and youthful faces just to stay "relevant".

Not to be undone by the DAP, the MCA has recruited Victor Gu, a famous news anchor and TV host popular with the Mandarin-speaking audience, as its poster boy. This gimmick may work to some extent. After all, the Chinese have seen their rights eroded, their position having regressed dramatically since the tragic May 13 Incident of 1969. The minority syndrome of the Chinese living in a country that is slowly but firmly ditching its secular outlooks is too marked to be overlooked.

Whenever they see Khairy Jamaluddin, the egoistic Oxford-graduate whose ambitions are undoubtedly pitched high, the Chinese cannot help yearning for a talented youngling of their own.

Independent-minded political rookies

This desire for an answer to the overrated Khairy is only natural, but they just don't see it in the MCA. Luckily, the DAP has been able to present its own Pua, also an Oxford-graduate. (Such comparison is rather unfair. To my mind, Pua is intellectually way more honest and solid than Khairy, whose rhetoric has been ringing hollow since the day he joined Umno.)

Now that the MCA has got a young talent in Gu (photo), will it make a difference?

When Tony Blair joined Labour in the late 1970s, the party had just lost power and was locked in one of its toughest ideological struggles. It was brave of Blair to choose the just defeated party with a view to putting it onto the right path by making it centre left.

The rest, of course, is history.

Those who are familiar with Ooi and Pua should be able to gauge their political ideals and agendas by reading their blogs and writings. But little is known in regard to what is in Hu's mind. He has allegedly been "inspired" by Ong Ka Ting. Will he soon be compelled to sing the praises of the MCA president and to curry favour with party veterans to soothe the latter's latent anger, rather than effecting positive and lasting changes within the party?

On a macro scale, the entire political climate in Malaysia is not conducive to breeding independent-minded political rookies. Opposition politics is a no-go area on university campuses, and all the evil laws to curtail thoughts and minds are still hanging like a Damocle's sword.

Meanwhile, the flourishing entertainment industry could be part of the grand scheme of the authorities to actually numb the thinking of the young, hence the joke that, in Malaysia, all qualifications from UPSR to STPM only lead to Akademi Fantasia!

(But one must not underestimate the power of the youth. When the time comes, they may unleash their potentials beyond imagination. One popular sociological analysis on the immense frenzy over the showbiz talent competitions, such as the Super Female Voice, the Happy Voice Boy and My Hero, in China is that these are the only opportunities where the ordinary Chinese can have a taste of public voting experience in the authoritarian state.)

Will the entry into party politics of Victor Gu, Tony Pua and Jeff Ooi and others who have gone before them, such as Liew Chin Tong and Jenice Lee of the DAP, as well as Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Nurul Izzah, Sim Tze Tzin, Elizabeth Wong, Nathaniel Tan and Tian Chua of the truly multiracial PKR, not to forget the non-partisan Youth For Change, shake the hard realities on the ground and rekindle the zeal of an apolitical nation?

Will they be instrumental in changing the internal structures of their respective parties, including putting in place a more transparent candidate selection and leadership succession process that is based on meritocracy? This is especially telling for the DAP that has long been premised on the personality cult of Lim Kit Siang.

It may be hard to change the mammoth Umno, but all other political parties must at least seek to make their internal functioning more democratic and relevant to the masses. Should this come true, all the hypes over this political baptismal season will not be in vain indeed.