‘YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO ME’ – SOI LEK CROWS AS THE CHINESE GET READY TO KICK LIOW & CO INTO OUTER SPACE
FORMER MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek said if the party had remained out of the cabinet after the 13th general election (GE13), the Chinese community would not regard the party with such disdain today.
“I think if MCA had insisted on staying out of the cabinet, we would have more room to manoeuvre,” Dr Chua told The Malaysian Insight recently.
Dr Chua led MCA during GE13 in 2013 and had declared that the party would quit the cabinet if it performed worse than it did in 2008’s GE12.
The declaration proved prophetic, as the party performed worse than 2008, then under Ong Ka Ting’s leadership, which led the party’s leaders to resign from all cabinet and senior governmental positions.
In 2008, it did slightly better – winning at least a third – 15 out of the 40 parliamentary seats and 31 out of the 90 state seats it contested.
Prior to that, MCA had always been able to win more than half of the federal and state seats it contested since it first competed in the elections in 1959, except in the 1969 elections and 1990 elections, where it still won more than a third of the federal and state seats contested.
Dr Chua stood by his decision to keep MCA out of the cabinet, even though the party has been in the cabinet since independence, saying the people had shown in the past two general elections that they didn’t want the party in government.
After Dr Chua was ousted and replaced by current president Liow Tiong Lai in late 2013, the decision to quit the cabinet was reversed in early 2014.
“If we had stayed out, then our political situation would be different today. Now the people blame MCA for everything because MCA is part of the government, this is the burden that we have to bear,” he said.
The former health minister said the recent attacks on former sugar tycoon Robert Kuok, who is highly regarded among the Chinese, proved that MCA could not champion the community even when it was in the cabinet.
“Senior MCA leaders did not dare to speak up for Kuok, even deputy president Wee Ka Siong, who attacked the DAP over the episode, did nothing,” Dr Chua said.
He also criticised MCA for its poor performance on critical current issues, saying the party neither showed courage nor political wisdom.
“This had led the community to disrespect MCA. If the party did not re-join the cabinet back then, then we would have more room to express our opinions on current issues,” the former Labis MP said.
Even if MCA is part of the cabinet, the party should still have the courage to give differing opinions as it is a Barisan Nasional component party, but this does not seem to be the case, he said.
Last November, BN chairman Najib Razak threw the gauntlet at MCA, challenging its oldest coalition partner to improve on its previous polls performance and win at least 15 federal seats to justify its number of cabinet posts.
Najib reminded the Chinese party that it only has seven MPs now and had to improve on that to retain seats in the cabinet.
“But if you have 15, you’ll be a lot stronger in the government,” the prime minister said.
“Tell the Chinese community: do you want a strong or weak representation in government? The choice is yours.”
THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT
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✍ Sumber Pautan : ☕ Malaysia Chronicle
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