COMMENT Summary dismissal, by the very term, means that it is the first option, not the last as claimed by MIC secretary-general S Murugessan. He was complaining about the unilateral expulsion of four leaders in as many days by party president S Samy Vellu.
Let's draw an analogy from the battlefield, where a soldier cowardly retreats under enemy fire, rather than advance on the order to charge ahead. The officers bringing up the rear have the right to shoot the cowardly soldier on the spot. This is to re-assure the other soldiers and maintain morale. This is not a case for court-martial.
Another example: if an employee resorts to violence against a fellow-worker at the workplace, he can be virtually terminated on the spot - that is. summary dismissal - since the offence is so grave that it needs no further deliberation. There's no need to go through the process of a show cause letter and domestic inquiry before dismissal.
One may argue this point until the cows come home. But the main point to consider is whether a person is wanted any longer by the entity that dismissed him in the first place. Since this is an issue of goodwill, what we have is a fait accompli, i.e. there's no return to the status quo for a person subject to summary dismissal.
Bringing the party and the presidency into public disrepute is so serious an offence that it warrants summary dismissal and nothing else. Why elect a person to the presidency then turn around to ask that person, seemingly for no rhyme or reason, to step down?
Former MIC Youth deputy chief V Mugilan (left in photo), on that score, deserves to be sacked. He's not the first in the party under Samy to deserve such a fate, and he won't be the last either. He joins the 100,000 others who have been sacked by Samy over the last three decades and now make up the opposition ranks.
Why only now?
True, Seremban MIC strongman M Muthupalaniappan (below) was also accused not so long ago of bringing the party and the presidency into disrepute, but lived to fight another day.His hide was saved by the fact that he has spent a good many years of his life with MIC. Mugilan doesn't have this track record. He should have realised that he can't just simply bite off more than what he can chew. Are the other voices against Samy coming from those who slavishly endorsed him unopposed as MIC president, or are they from those who were vehemently against him?
If the latter, they have really no credibility in the matter. Why didn't they kick up a fuss when he was returned unopposed as MIC president? The fact that they have a vested interest in the issue, like Samy's people, is beside the point.
Hence, the call by Gerakan Anti Samy (GAS) to Samy to immediately step down can only be seen as part of a self-serving agenda, perhaps instigated by external batu api (instigator) elements. Baling batu, sembunyi tangan (throw the stone and hide the hands).
For starters, the anti-Samy movement is led by a nobody, a small fry (i.e. Mugilan) who is currently basking in his 15 minutes of fame courtesy of the mainstream media. Where are the other great heroes in MIC who think that they could have won the party presidency but were somehow thwarted in their ambitions by Samy? S Subramaniam, the former MIC deputy president for example, or the great Muthupalaniappan who had his candidacy for presidency disqualified after he faced expulsion.
Instead, Subramaniam (left) has lamely offered to step down as Seputeh MIC Branch chairperson and retire from politics altogether if Samy would relinquish the MIC presidency.
He deliberately set a deadline of one week before his offer lapses. This shows that he's not serious in making such a hurried offer. Besides, where's the basis for comparison? One cannot equate the puny Seputeh Branch chair with the MIC presidency. There hasn't been even a whisper from other great heroes of the party, if not the people, on whether Samy should step down. Perhaps they know in their conscience that it is not the right call under the circumtances considering that Samy has already set a timeline for his resignation.
Kollywood melodrama
It must be remembered that former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad took a long time, two years, to say goodbye. In hindsight, it was a patently poorly-staged melodrama inspired by Tollywood.
He shed some crocodile tears, confessing that he had failed the Malays miserably, and wailing uncontrollably on national television declared that he was stepping down immediately. He “relented” almost within minutes after he was “persuaded” by other actors on the scene, all terrible, to take a longer time to say goodbye.
Had Samy enacted a similar Mahathirian drama, the same plot would have transpired.
His supporters are as capable as the sycophants around Mahathir of making an impassioned plea in public and shedding more than their fair share of crocodile tears. Wouldn't they stand to lose in many ways, if their man went at an inconvenient time for them?
Samy was more honest than Mahathir and set a definite timeline to exit the MIC presidency.
We can of course say that there's no reason to really believe him this time. He has cried wolf once too often. We have to only consider a previous public statement where he vowed that there would be no long goodbyes and that he sees a short exit.Either he has had second thoughts, or sees the public statement as merely thinking out aloud. In any case, there was no reaction from MIC leaders and members to that particular statement. Samy could rightly be excused for thinking that they weren't too concerned if he left. That would have annoyed him no end and persuaded him to cancel his initial resolution pronto.
Samy has yet to exhaust all his options because his latest quit offer has not been presented before the party's Central Working Committee (CWC) for its endorsement. No one is thinking along these lines.
The CWC is the right place to accept, reject or hasten Samy's departure. Instead, we have Mugilan's GAS making a spectacle of itself allegedly encouraged by certain elements in Umno. Although the latter has denied the claim, GAS certainly seems to be well-funded, and this in itself should raise more than a few eyebrows.
Samy here to stay
In the absence of the CWC debating his quit plan, Samy will be tempted to delay his departure until his term expires in May 2012. Between now and May 2012, there's no telling whether MIC deputy president G Palanivel (right) will last. Already, relations between Palanivel and Samy have cooled in the wake of the Hulu Selangor by-election. Palanivel's hide may be saved if Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, as speculated, appoints him as a deputy minister.
But this in itself is no solution since Human Resources Minister Subramaniam, although junior to Palanivel, is already a full cabinet minister. How will he explain this breach of protocol to his party supporters? Not that Najib cares about such “trivial” issues.
By the time May 2012 comes around, Samy can point out that it's almost the general election and that the party polls should be put on hold until it is over. He may mumble something about wresting back all the lost MIC seats before he goes out in a blaze of glory. Samy isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.
Source : http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/133053
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