MCA not the only party that can represent Chinese: PAS is better than MCA!

Guan Eng chides Soi Lek for double standards

By Yow Hong Chieh

May 02, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, May 2 — Lim Guan Eng has hit out at the MCA for threatening Chinese voters for exercising their freedom of choice while keeping silent about Umno’s “unilateral” invitation to PAS to join Barisan Nasional (BN) for Malay unity.

The Penang chief minister said this proved the MCA and its president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek have “no respect for democracy” and were willing to practise double standards to serve the needs of “dictatorial” coalition partner Umno.

“Umno is BN and BN is Umno,” Lim (picture) said in a statement today. “Once again Umno and (Dr) Chua have proven that whether or not there is any representation by MCA in government is irrelevant.”

Dr Chua pledged yesterday that the MCA would stay out of government if it failed to improve flagging support among Chinese voters in the next general election, expected to be called anytime between August and early next year.

Currently, the MCA only has 15 MPs and 31 state assemblymen from Election 2008. The party had contested 40 parliamentary seats and 90 state seats then.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who is also Umno president, had urged the community on Saturday to support the MCA or risk losing Chinese representation in the BN government.

Najib also extended an invitation to PAS to join BN for the sake of Malay and Muslim unity that same day, telling the Islamist party it could not achieve its aims while partnered with the DAP.

But Dr Chua was quick to respond that the MCA would only accept PAS as a coalition partner if the latter abandoned its policy of turning Malaysia into a theocratic Islamic state.

Lim today also said the MCA will not carry out its threat to reject ministerial posts if the party was once again rejected by voters, claiming that no MCA leader would turn down such an opportunity.

He said Dr Chua’s failure to direct the MCA’s four ministers and two assemblymen in Perak and Negri Sembilan to resign their government posts despite the party losing badly in Election 2008 showed that the former Labis MP was an “unprincipled leader”.

“This again confirms MCA’s struggle is not about principles but for positions, not fighting for the people but for posts,” the DAP secretary-general said.

“After all, if voters have rejected BN, why is it that MCA dare not withdraw from BN? Whether MCA wins big or loses big in general elections, MCA would continue to be given four minor ministerial posts.”

Lim also slammed the MCA and Umno for “playing racial and extremist politics” by talking only of Chinese unity and Malay unity at the expense of Malaysian unity, saying that this contradicted the prime minister’s own 1 Malaysia concept.

“To date neither Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s focus on Malay and Islamic unity nor his deputy Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s support of ‘1 Melayu, 1 Bumi’ or ‘I am Malay first and Malaysian second’ is consistent with 1 Malaysia,” he said.

I have Chinese friends who voted for PAS in the last GE.

What if one day the Chinese become the minority of the minorities?

The fact is the Chinese population is declining in Malaysia.

So what Chinese representation by MCA in government is Chua Soi Lek talking about?