Samy Vellu’s Malay dilemma

Datuk Seri S. Samuy Vellu holding up his vote towards the media before casting it during the recent election for the post of Vice President at the MIC general assmbly in PWTC on Septemeber 12, 2009 - Bernama

KUALA LUMPUR— Flush from a major victory, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu is now twitching like a beached fish under Umno's glare over an emotional outburst by a MIC delegate who had wanted to garland Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad with slippers for criticising the party president.

Umno leaders and Malay organisations have taken umbrage over the remark and have demanded a personal apology from Samy Vellu.

It is now a dilemma for the veteran Indian leader who is caught between appeasing the former prime minister and Umno or staying firm with the anti-Mahathir grandstanding he himself had created.Samy Vellu has offered to sack the offending delegate, believed to be from Selangor hoping the storm would blow over. But that offer conflicts with comments made by other MIC leaders responding to the Malay demand for a personal apology.

The president's son, Vel Paari, who is also a MIC Youth wing co-coordinator, has tried justify the anti-Mahatihr invective by saying the delegates were worked up by Dr Mahathir's criticism of his father.

MIC Youth chief T. Mohan added his two cents in a statement carried prominently in the Samy Vellu-owned Tamil Nesan asking Umno to take disciplinary action against Dr Mahathir for “interfering” in the internal affairs of the party. By all accounts, Samy Vellu appears to want to settle the prickly issue of Dr Mahathir by sacking the delegate but is reluctant to offer a personal apology to keep his “tough and afraid of anyone” image among his diehard supporters.

Dr Mahathir was seen as an “interfering enemy” by Samy Vellu and his camp ever since the former prime minister told the Makkal Osai, a Tamil daily owned by losing deputy presidential candidate Datuk S. Subramaniam’s supporters, that the long-serving party president was destructive, had failed the Indian community and was the reason they abandoned the Barisan Nasional for the Pakatan Rakyat in Election 2008.

Dr Mahathir, who spoke to the vernacular newspaper in the run-up to the Sept 12 MIC election, had also urged party delegates to elect good leaders like Subramaniam.
Once a close ally of Dr Mahathir, Samy Vellu worked quickly and hard to head off the impact of the statement on delegates by using his Tamil Nesan newspaper to attack the former leader as a person unfit to advise the MIC because he had disposed off his own deputies.

He also attacked Subramaniam as “disgraceful” for bowing to Dr Mahathir and using him to get votes in the MIC. “Shame!” was the one-word headline of the Tamil Nesan newspaper on the eve of the poll to reflect Samy Vellu's opinion of Subramaniam, who was once his deputy.

After the president's men swept through the party polls last Saturday despite criticisms from Dr Mahathir and Umno-held newspapers, MIC delegates on Sunday criticised the former prime minister in what was seen as an organised manner with Datuk A. Muneandy from Ampang wanting to pass a resolution condemning Dr Mahathir for interference. But Samy Vellu interjected to say such a resolution was unnecessary adding Dr Mahathir, although interfering in MIC affairs, should be respected because he had brought the country to great heights.

However other delegates keep coming back to the subject and the “garland of slippers” speech was made when Samy Vellu was not in the party assembly ironically held in Umno's Putra World Trade Centre.

Incensed with the attacks, Dr Mahathir renewed his criticisms of Samy Vellu in his blog - although not naming him - saying “there are politician who think if they as party president then they can win in the general election.” “So they try to win by sacking members opposed to them using money to buy support or use their power to threaten or offer any promises to win support,” said the Umno veteran who was prime minister for 22 years.

He noted that they can win through this means but will lose support among the people because the people would notice their abuses. (TMI)