MCA membership open to all

KUALA LUMPUR: MCA is set to open its doors to all Malaysians from next year, says party secretary-general Datuk Chong Sin Woon.

“Malaysians who are not Chinese but MCA-friendly could join as affiliate members, but they have no voting rights in the party, ” he said.

Describing it as “transformation in tandem with times”, he noted that MCA, set up in 1949 as a Chinese-based party, has been taking care of Malaysians irrespective of race.

MCA’s current membership is 1.068 million.

“This affiliate membership is not open to Malaysian Chinese, ” he said at Wisma MCA here yesterday.

Chong said a resolution to amend the party’s constitution to include the affiliate membership would be tabled at the MCA annual general meeting (AGM) here next Sunday for approval.

Chong said another proposed major amendment to the party constitution was to lower the minimum age of members from 18 to 16 because the Members of Parliament from both sides of the political divide had unanimously amended the Federal Constitution recently to lower the minimum voting age from 21 to 18.

Chong said these proposed amendments has to be approved by the party’s central committee at its meeting next Tuesday before tabling them in the AGM on Dec 1.

There will be 2,529 central delegates to this AGM, and he is expecting a high turnout because many would want to hear from MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong on the way forward for the party after Barisan Nasional’s big victory in the Tanjung Piai by-election.

Barisan’s candidate Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng from MCA won with a 15,086-vote majority after polling 25,466 votes to beat Pakatan Harapan candidate Karmaine Sardini from Parti Pribumi Malaysia Bersatu who got 10,380 votes.

There were six candidates in the by-election.

The others were Wendy Subramaniam from Gerakan who got 1,707 votes, Parti Bersatu’s Datuk Dr Badrulhisham Abdul Aziz (850) and independent candidates Dr Ang Chuan Lock (380) and Faridah Aryani Abd Ghaffar (32).

The by-election was triggered by the death of its MP Datuk Dr Md Farid Md Rafik on Sept 21.

In the general election last year, Dr Farid from Bersatu defeated Wee, a two-term Tanjung Piai MP, by a 524-vote majority. - Star