Turning anger with PH into votes for MCA

 

MCA president Wee Ka Siong says the party needs to plan and make sure the Chinese community votes for them.

BATU PAHAT: The Chinese community, particularly in Johor, is frustrated with the opposition due to their failure to fulfil promises, says MCA president Wee Ka Siong.

However, although the sentiment was an apparent trend among Chinese voters, Wee said he preferred to be cautious and give serious thought to this.

“It appears to be the trend now, but for me, I want to be careful. I don’t think this (change of heart) happens by itself, so it’s important for MCA to try and do more to get votes,” he said.

When asked if Chinese voters had returned to MCA or if they cast protest votes against Pakatan Harapan (PH), he said MCA needed to think how it could attract more votes for the party.

“Maybe people don’t like PH any more, they could very well be frustrated with PH, but will that automatically translate into votes for us? Will that (sentiment) turn into votes in our favour? That’s the question we have to ask,” he told FMT when met recently at his service centre in Yong Peng.

Wee said MCA needed to have a game plan that would come across as more comprehensive and holistic, with what it wanted to offer to the community as the main draw.

One of the reasons the Chinese community was frustrated with PH, he said, was that the coalition was “only good at making promises” which they ended up not fulfilling after winning the 14th general election (GE14).

Among these pledges, he said, were that tolls and PTPTN loans would be abolished; they also initiated the ‘flying car’ project.

“But when they came into power….they couldn’t do what they promised and people saw them as not walking the talk.”

Wee also rejected claims that MCA relied only on Malay support, based on voter demographics of Malay-majority areas like Ayer Hitam and Tanjung Piai.

He said MCA would be contesting against DAP in 14 seats and against Muda in one seat.

“Those state seats would definitely have a significant number of Chinese voters. This is the time we pray for support from various races, including the Chinese community,” he said.

MCA has named 15 candidates in the Johor elections. On Feb 24, Wee said nine of them were new faces and that the average age of the party’s candidates was 43 years old.

In GE14, MCA lost all 15 state seats it contested. - FMT