No Chinese in govt, no problem

An academician says elected politicians should be representing all races and not a particular race or political party.

KUALA LUMPUR: The absence of Chinese representatives in the Cabinet should it happen will not pose major problems to the government or Chinese community, an academician said today.

Dr Ser Wue Hiong, senior lecturer at the Foreign Languages Department, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, said any concerns if such scenario takes place would only be for a short term priod and could be overcome.

Following the just concluded 13th general election (GE13) which saw MCA and Gerakan almost wiped out, both parties had announced that they would not take up any cabinet posts “out of respect to the voters decision”.

The decision prompted debates from all quarters.

While some feared that the community could be neglected if they had no voice in the cabinet, many including Ser think otherwise.

Ser told Bernama that the fact that Chinese voted most MCA and Gerakan candidates out in the general election proved that the issue of Chinese representation in the Cabinet, was also not a concern to them.

He said politics in this new era should also break away from tradition and more importantly, elected politicians should be representing all races and not a particular race or political party he or she represented.

He added that a politician who only championed for one race would also not bode well for the multiracial fabric of this country.

“I think this is the reality of today’s Malaysia. We need to move away from tradition,” he said.

Ser, who specialises in Malaysian Chinese studies, opined that the only sector that may be impacted was Chinese education, but he was quick to argue that the problem could just be temporary.

He was also confident that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak would not sideline development of the Chinese community including on education post-GE13.

“I believe that he will make adjustments and look into new approaches to address the needs and interests of Chinese education.

“One of the ways I can see is that he will appoint a Chinese educationist to sit in his government to take care of Chinese education,” he added.

Prior to this, the portfolio for Chinese education was held by a deputy minister from the community.

-Bernama