Sweet dreams, Pakatan (WITH VIDEO)
The MCA president believes that Pakatan and its supporters are building castles in the air with regard to their ambition of capturing Putrajaya.
“When I shared with the PM the results of the surveys, he said, ‘Yes, that’s their [Umno] finding as well’. Do not think we never thought about being multiracial. The survey was very clear. At the end of the day, the Malays say that they are comfortable with Umno, they feel that the time is not ready to dismantle everything. It is the same with the Indians and Chinese.”
RK Anand and Teoh El Sen, Free Malaysia Today
Following its unprecedented electoral gains in 2008, Pakatan Rakyat has now set its sights on capturing the coveted administrative capital of Putrajaya.
For most, this is an impossible task, but the die-hard supporters remain adamant that the coming 13th general election would sound the death knell for Barisan Nasional.
However, MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek believes that the Anwar Ibrahim-led coalition and its supporters were building castles in the air.
Simply put, he said this was nothing more than a “sweet dream” and was optimistic that BN would fare better this time around.
But on MCA’s performance, the president chose a more cautioned response when asked if he was confident of roping in the votes, especially from the Chinese electorate.
“I wouldn’t say I am confident but I would say it would definitely be better than 308 [last general election],” he told FMT in an exclusive interview.
On critics claiming that MCA had become irrelevant, since the majority of Chinese voters were seen as pro-opposition, Chua trained his crosshairs on a popular target for all MCA leaders, DAP.
Delving into the political history of Malaysia, he argued that DAP had only performed well in the last general election.
“And suddenly everyone says that ‘Oh, DAP is great!’ After 40 over years, they have made a breakthrough, formed a government in Penang and everybody just condemns MCA.
“I say that the voters have the right of choice. If they feel MCA should be condemned to be irrelevant, they have the right to choose so,” he added.
Chua also said he had yet to finalise the party’s candidates list for the coming general election but added that like in previous elections, it would comprise between 30% and 40% of new faces.
“It has always been the tradition in the party to give the younger generation an opportunity,” he added.
Asked if his political nemesis and former party president Ong Tee Keat would be given the green light to defend his Pandan parliamentary seat, he replied: “I always said it openly. Whoever is a winnable candidate should be a candidate.”
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Still in their ‘ethnic cocoons’
On the observation that the younger generation was gravitating towards multiethnic as opposed to monoethnic parties like MCA, Chua said the nation was still not prepared for colour-blind politics.
Furthermore, he revealed that both MCA and Umno had carried out separate surveys which proved this point.
“We have done a survey and Umno has done one as well. But we don’t publish those surveys. I have done an online survey, hidden under other names,” he said.
“The irony is that in the beginning, all the youngsters want a multiracial party. But at the end of the ‘leading questions’, all of them go back to their basic animal instincts, everybody talks about race. It is consistent, I have done two surveys.
“When I shared with the PM the results of the surveys, he said, ‘Yes, that’s their [Umno] finding as well’. Do not think we never thought about being multiracial. The survey was very clear. At the end of the day, the Malays say that they are comfortable with Umno, they feel that the time is not ready to dismantle everything. It is the same with the Indians and Chinese.”
“But at the beginning of the survey, all were very multiracial, what we call ‘intellectual discourse’ about all the goodness of multiracialism. At the end of the day, they turned back into their own ethnic cocoons,” he added.
Reaching out to more Indians
Chua stressed that while MCA was a Chinese-based party, it was however reaching out to all races, adopting a multiracial approach to politics.
The MCA service centre, he pointed out, was open to all races.
And under his watch, the MCA president said, the party had reached out to more Malaysian Indians compared to the previous leadership.
“Since I became the president, I have reached out to the Indians more than any other person has done. If you look at the Tamil press, I appear there reaching out to the Indians more than any other MCA president has done.
“I have given out money to the Indians more than any other MCA president has. I am not trying to be proud or arrogant, but this is to show that we reach out,” he said.
“For our 1MCA medical fund, we have spent RM6.5 million benefiting 1,100 people in the last one year; 25% of them are not Chinese and there are more and more Indians [benefiting].
“My 1MCA education fund, there are a lot of Indian [recipients], my Microcredit for Youth, also a lot of Indian [recipients], [education institutions] Ktar and Unitar, if you go there, you will see a lot of Indian students,” he added.
Quizzed on why urban voters were turning their backs on BN, Chua said Singapore was also facing the same problem despite its government having performed well.
“I think it’s a combination of many factors. People are more educated and more demanding. They don’t want to be just contented with basic rights, they want more,” he added.
However, Chua said these concerns were difficult to tackle in any developing nation.
Below are excerpts from the interview:
