A straightforward business deal in which an MCA media company bought out a Chinese newspaper is now mired in political controversy. The deed is done. Huaren Holdings bought control of the Nanyang Siang Pau and its associated publications. The parent company Nanyang Press Holdings, after the George Lee family gave up control, was owned by interests friendly to the MCA.

The latest takeover brings the party in direct control of the newspaper, as it did over the Star and its publications.

The MCA president, Dr Ling Liong Sik, is gungho about it, even if the deputy president, Lim Ah Lek, and others are opposed to it. Now, the prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, supports it, and swears to high heaven that it is not politically motivated, which in Malaysia's highly-charged political atmosphere, means it is.

The deal is rammed through, the new owners ordering the Nanyang's senior editorial and administrative executives frogmarched out of office. The takeover has all the signs of a vendetta, with the new owners getting rid of those it considers responsible for reports that redounded on the MCA leaders.

A core of the newspaper's contributors threaten to stop writing for Nanyang under new management. The opposition - political parties, NGOs, journalists, concerned citizens - are up in arms. The opposition to it is more than over jobs and money; it is over the removal of yet another voice that sings a different tune.

However one looks at it, the Nanyang sale is caught up in the fractious uncertainties of Malaysian politics. The MCA is in the same boat over this as Umno is over the rescue of cronies and their businesses.

The MCA leaders, in the purchase, misunderstand the ground, is seen today as having done the community in by removing yet another relatively independent voice of the Chinese. The Anwar Ibrahim imbroglio, by extension, spreads to the politics of MCA and MIC, and the MCA in a spot over its purchase of Nanyang.

Culture and newspapers