KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 — The top leaders in MCA will be meeting their counterparts in MIC in the next three days to discuss the future of their Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, which the Chinese component party is in favour of dissolving.
MCA president Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong added that a meeting with Umno will be called subsequently for a collective decision though no date has been set, The Sunday Star reported today.
“We hope that the Barisan supreme council can call for a meeting soon.
“No matter what the outcome is, we believe the coalition was founded by the three component parties and its future should be decided by them.
“We are to seek a consensus agreed by all three component parties and work together in deciding the way forward for all of us,” Wee was quoted saying at his party’s 70th anniversary bash yesterday.
The three parties were the founding partners of the Alliance, the predecessor to the BN prior to the creation of Malaysia in 1963.
Following its defeat in the May 9 general election last year, the coalition’s 13 component parties dropped out one by one, leaving the original three.
MCA reached a resolution at its annual general assembly last December 2 to call for a BN supreme council meeting for the dissolution of the coalition.
However, BN secretary-general Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz recently said he had not receive any order from acting BN chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan to call for one, adding that Umno will never agree to a dissolution as it had plans for the coalition.
Wee castigate Nazri and accused the Umno lawmaker of “campaigning for Pakatan Harapan and trying to bring down his own party” at the just concluded Semenyih by-election — which BN won — with the latter’s remarks against vernacular education, which allegedly harmed its political partners.
MCA has been losing support from the Chinese voter base it is supposed to represent over the past three general elections, leaving the party only Wee as its sole MP after GE14.
MCA secretary-general Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun conceded that the party has a long way to go to regain voter support despite the missteps by the ruling Pakatan Harapan.
“The Pakatan Harapan government may have committed many mistakes and become a laughing stock in the last nine months, but this will not help MCA to recover its seats lost in the general election.
“For now, we can only watch Pakatan’s antics like comedies over a cup of tea,” she was quoted by The Sunday Star as saying at the MCA anniversary celebration.
