MCA secretary-general Dr Ting Chew Peh refuted allegations that the party was distancing itself from mainstream politics and concentrating on 'social development' projects instead.

"MCA does not shy away from politics. MCA is a political party. We still concentrate on the party agenda. We promote national agendas and we tackle all issues," he said.

In an exclusive interview with malaysiakini , Ting said however that coalition partners in Barisan Nasional (BN) must understand the importance of working within the framework of the ruling coalition.

"There are constraints. In the BN structure, you must know where the limit is. (This applies to) Every group, political party, not just MCA. You must work within the framework.

"You can't achieve 100 percent. You may get 80 percent and you are very happy. Sometimes you get 70 percent or 50 percent. There are compromises, as you always have to think of other people's feelings."

Ting, who has been MCA secretary-general since 1990, said the party's current leadership under president Ong Ka Ting is headed in the right direction.

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".You don't expect 100 percent unity and consensus, (but) over all the cc (central committee) has been working very well. They are moving in the right direction and doing fairly well within our present political environment," he added.

In 2001, MCA split into two camps after its controversial purchase of two Chinese dailies . The camps were known as Team A, led by then president Dr Ling Liong Sik and team B led by then deputy president Lim Ah Lek.

In May 2003, the ' peace plan' brokered by then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad saw the two leaders resign and replaced by Team A leader Ong Ka Ting and Team B's Chan Kong Choy.

Phantom voters

On the party election this year, Ting said the alleged phantom members in the electoral roll should not be made an issue.

"(Previously) We sent the whole list to the national registration department for verification....Just a small number (have problems) but the majority of them are genuine members," he said.

In 2002, Team B leaders had alleged that the party electoral roll was tainted with phantom members .

Elaborating, Ting said the party only received a few complaints and some of them were baseless.

"Our list is verified every three years....That is not a phantom voters problem but an administrative problem," he said.

To avoid unnecessary disputes, Ting said the party has been careful in handling applications of the members to transfer to other divisions.

Under the current regulations, a division which has less than 50 members is not allowed to stand as one.

"If A division has 52 members and three applied to be transferred to B division, then A division will only have 49 members. It cannot be a division as the minimum number (of members) is 50," said the secretary-general.

The MCA division level election will be held next month while the national level election is slated for August.

Q&A: MCA operates in a constrained framework, says Ting