Everlasting peace?

There is peace in MCA, at least that is the image that the leaders want to project.

Observers have interpreted the shocking peace move as a brilliant strategy by the president to outfox, outwit and outplay his rivals in the form of the new deputy president and his bunch of fans who used to support the president.

While the deputy president, who was elevated to that position during the last central committee meeting, will remain as deputy, it is not known whether his "promotion" will be permanent.

Apparently several central committee members had met not very secretly before the vital meeting when they demanded that the president should resign.

During that not-so-secret meeting, one youthful male leader and a female leader had been very vociferous in their criticism of the president and had been very demanding. Their supporters also had their say about what they thought of the president.

Unbeknownst to them, someone had slyly made a call to the president and left his handphone on all the time during the meeting. Thus the president "attended" the meeting and knew who were stabbing him in his back - they were mostly "friends" who revealed their true colours when the chips were down.

Thus the president expressed his sadness at being betrayed by his "friends" and he prevented them from accomplishing what they had wanted to do by refusing to step down and instead calling for another EGM to vote on whether or not to hold fresh party elections.

His enemies had apparently planned to promote a vice-president to the deputy presidency and if he had resigned, the new deputy would have moved up to become the "acting" president.

Thus observers said the president quickly held negotiations with the former deputy - apparently with much nudging from the Barisan Nasional chairman - to stymie the ascent of the new deputy.

Peace reigns in the party - for now.

Many observers are keeping taps on the situation and have adopted a wait-and-see stance.

There are many more obstacles to be overcome - what will happen to the new deputy? What will happen to the former deputy who feels that since he has been reinstated as a member he has been automatically reinstated as deputy too?

What will happen to the youthful male leader and the outspoken female leader who have used up all their aces? They have apparently gone overseas, possibly to ponder on what they should do next.

Can the events of the past few weeks be simply erased from the collective memory of the central delegates, the Chinese voters and all other Malaysians?

Can everybody pretend that nothing happened at all and return to square one?

Will all that name-calling, back-stabbing and political assassination result in everyone forgiving each other and bearing no grudges?

We shall see how long this peace will last.