Kuala lumpur, June 15 – MIC president G Palanivel’s drastic decision to remove three senior party leaders from the MIC central working committee (CWC) yesterday has raised eyebrows and sent shockwaves in the party.
Palanivel, yesterday, issued letters to former vice president S Veerasingham, Prof T Marimuthu, the ex-education bureau head and G Rajoo, the former Perak MIC chief thanking them for the years of service to the party.
In politics, the letter was a polite way of saying you are fired and your services are not longer needed.
The new leaders replacing them are R Vidyanathan, the Johor government exco, S Mahadevan, the party representative in the Malacca state administration and L Manickam, the Negeri Sembilan exco member.
Some quarters have defended Palanivel’s move, saying that the veterans were removed because of the age factor. All three leaders are above 60-years.
If this arguement is applied across the board, then Palanivel should also have replaced KS Nijhar, the party’s disciplinary board head. Nijhar, at 80, happens to be the oldest person in the current list of CWC members.
This alone has set tongues wagging over Palanivel’s motive in removing the three senior leaders, who are known to be aligned to former party supremo S Samy Vellu.
Party sources reveal that Palanivel had to bring in “his people” into the CWC to avoid a motion that may jeopardise his position, at the next CWC meeting scheduled for coming Tuesday.
The motion, it is understood, is force the party’s top leadership, to have hold the internal polls earlier than the decided end of the year date.
Palanivel, the newly-minted Cameron Highlands MP, lost the Hulu Selangor parliamentary seat in 2008. He succeeded Samy Vellu, who relinquished the party top’s post in 2010. Palanivel was then made acting president.
Perak issue a deflection
The party postponed its 2012 internal polls due to the general election. One week after the 13th general election, the CWC again decided to postpone the party elections to end of the year, starting with branch elections.
The presidential election would only be held in 2014, and this means that the party had not called for its polls in over five years.
A grassroot MIC leader has lodged a complaint to the Registrar of Societies on the issue and is currently awaiting action from the ROS.
Although Palanivel has said that the main agenda of Tuesday’s CWC meeting would be to discuss the party’s interest in the Perak Speaker’s post, he also did not rule out discussions on the party elections.
MIC leaders and observers feel Palanivel was bringing up the Perak speaker’s issue to divert attention from the core problems in the party.
“The Perak issue is just a sideshow. He just wants to avoid disgruntled CWC members from bringing a motion against him.
“In fact the meeting was called after the party’s strategy bureau chief, S Vell Paari, threatened to convene a meeting with the approval of one-third of the total 41 CWC members,” said a party leader.
Speculation is rife that Palanivel’s rival faction in the CWC has managed to gather 21 CWC members to support their call against the president.
“This caused Palanivel’s camp to panic. He needs to reduce the numbers. So he removes three leaders aligned to the rival faction and puts in his own people. That is the real story behind the move,” a party leader told FMT.
But the burning question now is: Why is Palanivel desperate to push the party polls to next year?
“Palanivel needs to strengthen himself. He did not do this over the last three years since taking power as acting president. He is now weak.
“If Dr S Subramaniam (deputy president) decides to take him on, then Palanivel will definitely lose,” said a party leader linked to the deputy president.
The Samy factor
MIC practices a unique system where the president is picked by the party’s 3,700 branch chairmen.
Polls for other positions – deputy president, three vice presidents and 23 CWC members – are held three months after the presidential polls. Leaders for all these posts are picked by about 1,400 divisional delegates.
Disgruntled leaders in the CWC argue that holding the polls next year would give Palanivel time to set up more branches in order to safeguard his position.
Palanivel, they say, has also learnt that Samy Vellu would support Subramaniam in the presidential elections. Although Samy retired from active politics in 2010, he still has about 45% support of division and branch leaders.
It has been reported that Palanivel is planning to set up about 800 new branches for this purpose. But his move could run foul of the party constitution as branches formed 12 months prior to the polls are not eligible to vote.
“In fact forming branches in an election year also runs foul of the constitution,” said the MIC leader, who did not want to be named.
The insider also said that out of the 800 branches, 400 have already been registered while efforts are underway to register the rest by end of the year.
He said the party’s unofficial record showed that the MIC now has 4,087 branches nationwide, when it is known fact that the party has only 3,700 branches.
The number of branches is expected to climb to 4,400 to 4,500 branches before the end of the year. Another reason why Palanivel tried to postpone the polls is to ensure that he remains in the seat until after the 14GE.
“If the presidential election is held in 2014, then the next election for the top post would be in 2017. But the BN would be preparing for the general election in 2017 and 2018. So the party polls would be postponed again.
“If he holds the party presidential election this year, then the next polls would be in 2016. It would be too early to postpone party elections as the general election would be two years away,” said a source.
While Palanivel is making his moves, his rivals have stayed silent playing the game. But it will not be too long before the dissenting voices grow louder and bolder and this would be the real test for Palanivel’s presidency.
-FREE MALAYSIA TODAY
