"Borrowing your head.."

 There was this subject that was compulsory when I was studying for my diploma, it was called Management Study.

On one occasion, the subject touched on responsibility and accountability. It stated that the higher the power, the higher the accountability of an issue. the teacher further pointed out example of Japan when
 accountability at its most extreme when the prime minister will apologize and resign over short coming.

she then compared it to local context when the common practice of the Chinese is to fault the people of lower hierarchy for the top management to evade accountability.

This reminds me of part of the Romance of Three kingdom, when the army of Cao Cao (曹操) was running out of food due to mismanagement, the troops were getting frustrated when they started to starve, and he is in danger of mutiny.   

He called in Wang Fang (王垕), who managed the logistic of supply. After he provided an up-date on the logistic status, Cao Cao asked if he could borrow something rom Wang Fang. He wanted to use Wang fang's head to calm the troop. Even with much resistance, Wang fang was quickly being apprehended by the guards and executed. 

Cao Cao then let the troops know that it as Wang Fang's mismanagement resulting in the food shortage, and that the issue was already settled, and food will arrive soon.

In the case of Wong Tack, who was elected by people of Bentong as their member of parliament (MP). He was a an environment activist known for his opposition to Lynas, a mining company of rare earth. 

He was elected partially due to people were disgusted with the corruption in the then BN government and wanted a change.

While in office, he did not make many headways into the Malay community, review on his performance was mixed. Worst was his changing of stance supporting continuation of Lynas operation, which was also backed by the then Harapan government.  Support for him was falling as a result.

The thing here is that the dwindling of support for him cannot be solely blamed on him. On Lynas incident, he was not the only one doing U-turn. The hole Harapan government including his adopted party DAP went silent on the matter, contrary to the time before they were elected to power. It was unfortunate that he was with additional banner of being an environmentalist.

As for his lack of performance in servicing the people and improving relationship with the Malays, he is not the only one.

If one look through the politicians in Malaysia, they have an inert reluctance to engage with people of other races, prefer to stay in the comfort zone of their own kind. Moreover, most simply disappeared immediately after election and miraculously found alive and well when next season come. Wong Tack is just one of them.

To me, it is the responsibility of DAP leadership itself to ensure their MPs work for the people. DAP and even Harapan really needs to be accountable for the lack in service quality.

It is unfortunate that DAP request for Wong Tack's head to remove themselves from responsibility. While pretending that they have no other choice (shown in the video), we do not know what happened behind the door. As far as I know, DAP rule their members with an iron fist. 

They however, failed to anticipate such resistance from Wong Tack, that he is willing to sever ties with DAP and run as independent candidate. While he may not win at all, it will dilute the votes for DAP. I believe bentong will go the way of the MCA candidate, after all, he did a good job servicing Bentong in the past.