MCA willing to give up seats to BN partners
(Bernama) – MCA is willing to give up seats it has contested all along to its Barisan Nasional (BN) partners on the condition they are confident of winning them and get the nod of BN chairman Datuk Seri Najib Razak, its president Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said today.
He said MCA had total confidence in Najib’s leadership and that the party was willing to forego seats it stood no chance of winning.
“As for me, there is no need to discuss seat distribution, we have confidence in the wisdom of the BN leadership under Najib.
“I am stating openly that MCA will not demand seats that we will not win or are not cofident of winning. We are not a component that likes to “syok sendiri” (likes self flattery)”,” he told reporters after meeting hawkers at the Gunung Rapat market here.
He said this when asked to comment on reports that MCA’s BN partner Gerakan stood a better chance of winning the Gopeng parliamentary and Malim Nawar state seats, which are traditionally MCA seats, in the next general election.
The report came about following an earlier report in an English daily on Aug 14 which said that MCA would be contesting the Puchong parliamentay seat which had been contested by Gerakan in the last two elections.
On this, Dr Chua said the two parties need not swap seats if each was confident they were more “winnable”.
“I am of the opinion that whether a candidate of a certain party can win or not depends on some criterias, firstly the division (of the party) must be active, second, do they have sufficient members and third, is their election machinery up to the task?
“Fourth, are they united, committed and willing to go the extra mile to ensure the BN candidate wins and lastly, which party the voters prefer, whether it is MCA, Gerakan, Umno or MIC. That is why were prefer to leave it to the (BN) leadership to decide,” he said.
As such, he said, MCA was confident that Najib, who is also Prime Minister, had many sources of feedback to decide which of the parties would be the most suited (for a particular seat).
Following the visit, Dr Chua also announced that Perak state executive councillor Datuk Dr Mah Hang Soon would be holding discussions with the hawkers at the market on upgrading the facility using a RM500,000 allocation that would be made available by the Housing and Local Government Ministry.
