MCA Youth chief to members: Prepare to take to the streets

In what appeared to be a soul-searching speech, new MCA Youth chief Nicole Wong today urged her party to be prepared to take to the streets.

"Although we are a rightist party, a new era now requires us to move to the centre and rectify ourselves.

"We have become a party which only knows about organising activities when we were part of the administration. We have lost the ability to organise social movements and the ability to provide discourse," she said.

Wong was speaking to delegates at MCA Youth annual general assembly in Kuala Lumpur today.

"Today, we need to look for the value of us being a party, so it is inevitable that we will have to go to the streets," she said, adding MCA Youth will be setting up a social movement bureau for this purpose.

"(MCA Youth) will cooperate with friendly activists, and (we will) exchange views and learn from each other. More importantly, we can march on the streets together," she said.

This is the first meeting of MCA Youth delegates since the 69-year-old party became the opposition after sustaining heavy losses in the May 9 general election.

Quitting BN discussion

MCA Youth also broke with tradition by not inviting BN Youth leaders to their AGM today. This was because the delegates are expected to discuss the possibility of MCA quitting the coalition.

The discussion on the matter will be held behind closed doors, and media are restricted to only covering the opening of the AGM.

A slide presentation on DAP leaders at the MCA Youth AGM

In her speech, Wong also expressed the Chinese community's wish for MCA to quit BN.

"The Chinese community and the public at large think that MCA can only be reborn and obtain Chinese support again with MCA quitting BN or BN dissolving.

"Is the public's view clear enough (for the party to make a decision)?" she asked.

[More to follow] - Mkini