Symbol of Irrelevance: Vellu should take his bow

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/9/24/focus/4764007&sec=focus

I quote excerpts from a commentary in The Star by Assoc Editor M. Veera Pandiyan. Vellu has always been known to be a bit of a tiger - but even I was shocked when he lost his long-held seat in the last elections.

Leave with dignity, not in shame

***

Those who know Samy Vellu well would agree that he can be charming and extremely generous to his friends but nasty and ruthless in anger, especially when dealing with political enemies.

And during his 30-year-long tenure – from 1979 to 1981 as acting president, and since then as president – many of his friends have turned into enemies and vice versa. A few have gone around several times in the continuing drama.

But today, his biggest worry must surely be his frenemies – those who seem to be friends but are actually enemies.

They had been too scared to invoke his wrath or to mount a challenge, even after the party’s worst loss in the March 2008 election that saw him being booted from his Sungei Siput parliamentary seat and forced out of his long-held Cabinet portfolio.

Yet he has doggedly refused to loosen his grip on the party. But for how long?

***

As for Samy Vellu, members would rather see him go with some semblance of dignity rather than be shoved out in shame.

I might be inviting a garland of slippers for this, but there is a danger of the MIC ending up as an abbreviation for Megalomaniac In Command if he chooses to stay on to the end of his 11th term.