I disagree with reader Sean who blamed

MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik for the cancellation of contests in the coming party 'elections'. It is obvious that it was Team B which, almost certain to be voted out, called in Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's intervention to suspend the democratic process of the party.

The fact that Team B has now decided not to pursue its own allegation of the so-called 'phantom members', shows that the membership list is clean. If there is no abrupt intervention from Mahathir, Ling's team would have won handsomely in a free and fair election. Team B's allegation has been proven baseless and ungrounded.

It must be stessed that every member of MCA is entitled to contest for any post in the party. The right of being MCA members under the party Constitution is legally recognised by the Registrar of Societies (ROS).

However, I also do not know why Ling and the majority of the central committee members backed down just because of the words of just one Umno man. A legal question arises: Are Mahathirs words more binding and supreme than the written Constitution of MCA? In other words, can the ad hoc 'no-contest agreement' signed only by Lim Ah Lek and Lim Kok Weng supercede the entire party Constitution which is the fundamental basis of our membership and association in MCA?

What can the party top leaders who do not want to contest do to we the grassroots who want to contest ? I do not think they can discipline us because we follow the party constitution, while they choose not to.

In fact, if they stop us from contesting, we could call for another EGM to discipline them for breaching the party constitution and illegally depriving us of our constitutional rights as paid-up party members. Those who want to contest are on the right side of the party constitution. Let us defend the party constitution and exercise our sacred right as MCA members.

Umno is Umno. MCA is MCA.