MCA keeps up attacks over Nazri’s remarks on party

KUALA LUMPUR: The MCA is continuing its barrage of attacks on Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz over his alleged disparaging remarks about the party being like a nagging woman who refuses to leave her husband.

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department raised the wrath of MCA members when Nanyang Siang Pau quoted him on March 23 as saying the party was like “a wife who complains all day long that she was being abused, raped and not given enough food, but yet does not want to divorce her husband.”

MCA Youth chief Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong, describing the remarks as distasteful, said it could damage the good relations among member parties of the Barisan Nasional.

“MCA members are disappointed over the remarks and feel that such an incident should not have happened,” he told a press conference after chairing the MCA Youth exco meeting here yesterday.

Dr Wee said all parties (in the Barisan) were important and “there is no party which plays a more important role than others.”

“Whether our party is strong or weak, we have always been firm in our stand to voice out the aspirations of all races in the country.

“We must all work together to gain the support of all races,” he said.

MCA central committee member Loh Seng Kok said no political party could claim it had the support of an entire ethnic or religious group.

“Neither Umno nor PAS can claim to wield authority over all the Malays as the community supports different political parties,” he said, advising Nazri to leave the Barisan and join the DAP.

“Nazri should join DAP, which claims to be multi-racial but does not have sufficient Malay influence,” he said, referring to a comment by DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng in a news portal last week that the party would rather admit Nazri than MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek into the DAP.

Loh said Nazri’s attacks on the MCA had given the opposition the opportunity to question the unity among Barisan parties.