Umno-MCA seat tussle begins ahead of polls

KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 — A battle over seats allocation has erupted between Barisan Nasional’s Umno and MCA ahead of the next general election, suggesting the Chinese party may be edged out from its traditional seats.

In a statement today, MCA treasurer-general Datuk Seri Tan Chai Ho said he was upset Wangsa Maju Umno leaders had openly staked their claim over the division’s parliamentary seat, which MCA usually contests and lost for the first time in Election 2008.

He scolded Umno for making its intentions public and urged all Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties to keep such matters internal.

“I would like to point out that all issues related to BN in the coming general elections must be decided on by the BN supreme council and processed in the spirit of BN whereby the views of all party members are looked into so as to find the perfect balance.

“Therefore, the unnecessary attention paid to this issue by the media is not healthy and should be ignored,” said Tan.

He also agreed that the coming polls will likely see BN and MCA “pushed against the wall” and reiterated his hope that all seat negotiations or grouses be aired within internal channels.

“Simply speaking out to the media without proper thinking can do serious damage to BN’s work preparation and morale in the elections thus leading to unnecessary disputes and discords as well as creating drifters who seek to take advantage of BN only,” he warned.

Wangsa Maju is viewed as a hot seat for MCA, whose candidate Yew Teong Look lost to former PKR MP Wee Choo Keong by a narrow margin of only 150 votes during Elections 2008.

Wee has since left PKR, citing disillusionment with the party and its de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and is currently an independent MP.

Elections 2008 also saw MCA suffer its worst ever electoral defeat when the party’s parliamentary representation was wiped out by more than half from 31 to just 15 seats.

Since then, the second largest BN component party has been struggling to make a comeback.

The tiff over the Wangsa Maju seat could be a harbinger of more to come between the two key BN parties as MCA is faced with tremendous pressure to deliver the Chinese vote for BN in the coming polls.

Its president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek has however already pre-empted a possible failure and promised recently that if the party repeated its poor performance in the next polls, he would withdraw MCA’s Cabinet representation.