Navigating politics: Then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (center), at the opening of an MCA annual general assembly in Kuala Lumpur. Flanking him were ex MCA president Tan Sri Lee San Choon(left) and then MCA president Dr Ling.
The life story of Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik as told to journalist Foong Pek Yee shortly after his retirement from active politics in 2003.
Dr Ling was the fourth generation of the Ling family, with a history dated back to Sitiawan, Perak in then Malaya in 1903.
A medical doctor by training, he went on to become the longest serving Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) president and the longest serving Transport Minister (1986-2003) in Malaysian history.
By Foong Pek Yee
Foongpekyee@gmail.com
Sept 18, 2026
It was autumn at Central London’s Hyde Park.
I had taken six weeks of no pay leave to do some reflections on what to do next.
That was in 1987 – a year filled with unparalleled challenges.
“Some 100 people including several MCA leaders got detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA).
“The swoop on Oct 27, 1987 was dubbed Operations Lallang 1987.”
There was widespread anger among the Chinese community in response to a government directive to send non Chinese educated teachers to hold senior positions in Chinese schools.
“The move was set to change the character of the Chinese schools.
“The tension escalated to protests in Chinese schools .
“As the MCA president and a Cabinet Minister, my six weeks of no pay leave was also to register my protest and stand by the Chinese community while working for a solution to the contentious issue.”
On my way home from London, I transit in Hong Kong to meet up with Robert Kuok- a very wise man and fatherly figure.
He had very good advice for me, saying, “Life is about going upstream, against the current, and you cannot stop or else you will go backwards. You are really going upstream.”
I learned the importance of patience and endurance in politics the hard way.
“The Chinese School issue was resolved and the MCA leaders detained under the Operations Lallang were released shortly before Christmas that year.”
I was put to test again and again in politics.
Earlier I was among the 14 MCA central committee members who got sacked in 1984 at the height of a party crisis.
I resigned as deputy finance minister after the sacking.
The then MCA acting president Neo Yee Pan rescinded the sacking in January 1985 and I was appointed the deputy education Minister two months later.
“I won the MCA deputy president’s post in the party elections in 1985 and got appointed as the Transport Minister the next year.”
The then MCA president Tan Koon Swan who was involved with Singapore’s Pan Electric Industries (Pan – El) scandal stepped down as party president in Sept 1986.
” As the MCA deputy president, I was automatically elevated to the MCA president’s post on Sept 3, 1986 as provided for under the party’s constitution.”
But there was no time to rejoice.
The country was in an economic recession then, and MCA in 1989 was at brink of losing Wisma MCA in Kuala Lumpur to a bank.
“We had a life membership recruitment drive to help save our building which also houses our party headquarters.”
Together with other measures we managed to save Wisma MCA.
In 1987, we also secured a ringgit-to-ringgit refund to some 500,000 depositors of the 24 cooperative societies under Koperasi Serbaguna Malaysia or KSM run by MCA leaders.
“We are grateful to every body who stood by MCA during such trying times and helped us to recover.”
I love to tell people the stories of MCA’s 3Rs – Rescue, Repair and Rebuilt – between 1986 and 1990.
Photos: Credit to a publication titled A Tribute to…Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik from his colleagues and friends in the Alumni Association of the King Edward VII College of Medicine and the Faculties of Medicine of the University of Malaya and University of Singapore.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication titled The life story of Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission from the journalist Foong Pek Yee.
