IS RIDHUAN TEE OFFERING HIMSELF? MCA must field Chinese-Muslim against Anwar in Kajang

KUALA LUMPUR — If MCA remains bent on taking on Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in the Kajang polls, the party needs to field a Chinese-Muslim for the contest to stand a fighting chance, said controversial columnist Ridhuan Tee Abdullah.

In his column on Sinar Harian today, the outspoken Muslim convert did not mince words in his scathing criticism of the Barisan Nasional (BN) party, even suggesting that it contest the polls on its own expense.

He reminded MCA that its candidates lost the Kajang seat in the last three elections, and asked, “Who is the most viable candidate in MCA to take on PKR’s number one leader?”.

“If there is none, go home and sit there quietly. Let the BN leadership decide,” Ridhuan Tee wrote.

“Even if there is an MCA candidate, find one who is Chinese-Muslim, and only then can the Malay voters connect,” the senior lecturer with the National Defence University added.

Ridhuan Tee reasoned that Kajang is a Malay-majority seat, with the community making up 48 per cent of the electorate. The others include the Chinese at 41 per cent and Indians at 10 per cent.

The academic admitted that the Kajang battle would be a hard-fought one, especially for BN, which is unlikely to win over the opposition stronghold.

But at the very least, he said, it is important that the ruling pact lessen the vote-majority of the “conceited” PKR.

He said if MCA were to contest the seat, this was unlikely to happen as the Malays who voted in the party before would likely not repeat the vote this time.

“Remember, the Malay voters are angry with the MCA today. MCA has become similar to the ultra-kiasus,” Ridhuan Tee said.

But a Malay candidate, he said, may soften the Malay electorate of Kajang towards BN.

“For BN to win is pretty far-fetched. But at the very least, we can lower the majority of the conceited PKR,” he said.

The MCA has repeatedly indicated its intention to contest the state seat, despite calls from is BN counterparts Umno from for the candidacy to be opened up beyond the coalition’s seat-sharing policy.

“We already have our shortlist of candidates, and we will pass it to BN soon. This by-election is important to MCA and BN. Let us all work hard together to win this state seat,” MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said over the weekend.

Last Wednesday, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin called for BN’s selection process to cast a wider net, so that BN can put a candidate with the best chance of winning the seat instead of limiting it to the traditional seat-sharing formula.

The proposal received support from Umno vice-president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who said that the choice of candidate should reflect the racial make-up of a given seat, with Malays accounting for nearly 48 per cent of voters in the case of Kajang.

Last Monday, PKR’s Kajang assemblyman Lee Chin Cheh abruptly quit the state legislative assembly, saying that he made his decision for the benefit of the party.

His sudden resignation came hot on the heels of media speculation that a by-election was in the offing to pave the way for PKR de-facto chief Anwar to become a member of the state assembly and qualify to replace Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim.

Party sources were quoted in the media as claiming that the purported move to replace Khalid with Anwar was to diffuse a long-standing spat between the current mentri besar and PKR Deputy President Azmin Ali.

PKR leaders, however, have denied the claims of such a ploy, though Azmin had admitted that Anwar had known of Lee’s plan to quit beforehand. - Malay Mail