MCA respects Gerakan’s decision

PETALING JAYA: MCA respects Gerakan’s decision to leave Barisan Nasional, says Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai (pic).

The MCA president said for MCA, however, the urgent task at hand is to reform the party as it sets out in a new direction by the end of the year.

The decision on whether to remain in the coalition or not would be made during the party’s annual general assembly in December, he said.

“Our major and immediate concern is to reform and strengthen MCA,” Liow said.

He added that MCA’s future direction was being charted by a committee headed by deputy president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong.

Meanwhile, MIC president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said Gerakan’s move would allow it as a multiracial party to chart its own political destination independently.

He said the GE14 results have had a destabilising factor in the structure and functioning of political parties, particularly those in Barisan.

All parties, including Umno, were finding new methods and strategies to remain relevant, bolster their support base and regain political space before the next general election, he said.

“In that respect, Gerakan has analysed and made its choice. We should respect that decision,” said Dr Subramaniam, who failed to retain his Segamat parliamentary seat.

MyPPP president Datuk Maglin Dennis D’Cruz said Gerakan left Barisan probably because its leadership felt that it had a better chance to rebuild its relationship with the voting public outside the former ruling coalition.

“I feel sad. We were together for so long. They shouldn’t have left,” he said.

Maglin added that all Barisan component parties attended a meeting chaired by acting Umno president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi right after the election, with the aim of making Barisan a multiracial party.

“Suddenly, all the parties are moving out. I don’t think they want to join Pakatan Harapan. Neither do I think that Pakatan would want to take parties from Barisan,” said Maglin.

Universiti Malaya Professor of Political Economy Prof Dr Edmund Terence Gomez said Gerakan’s decision would allow the party to return to its multiracial roots.

“Gerakan was ahead of its time when it was founded by Syed Hussein Alatas and other prominent academics like Wang Gungwu,” he said, adding joining Barisan under Umno’s hegemony had led Gerakan to espouse Umno-type policies, which were rather racialised.

“In Malaysian politics today, it’s very visible that the electorate has asked for the type of politics that are non-racialised and not religious in orientation. Gerakan fits that bill,” Dr Gomez said.

He said it was not necessary for Gerakan to become a mirror image of any other parties in Pakatan Harapan.

“It should go back to its roots, go back to articulating progressive policies, because they are no longer under Umno’s control,” he said.

Dr Gomez added that the party, with its multiracial origins and current political sentiments, could go far and was well-suited to becoming a major opposition party in its own right.

“That depends on the leadership it has. You don’t have to worry about the other side.What’s more important is they have to talk about what kind of vision they have,” he said.