The MCA central committee today decided that MCA Youths three-man panels approval of 411 new branches last Sunday is valid.

They are all valid branches, MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik announced at a press conference after a three-hour meeting this evening at the MCA headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

The three-member panel headed by former Youth national organising secretary Wang Choon Wing announced last week that it had approved 411 out of 566 applications to establish MCA Youth branches after a thorough check and verification.

Ling also announced today the dates for party elections at all levels.

According to him, the MCA national level elections will commence on June 28 for the Youth and Wanita wings while the parent body will hold its elections on June 29.

Ling said state level elections for the Youth and Wanita wings are set for May 26 while the divisional level elections will be held on April 27 and 28. MCA branches nationwide will conduct their elections on March 30 and 31.

New list

The MCA head also said that the partys list of new members would be open to inspection for 21 days as opposed to five days previously.

Ling said then names of 135,000 new members from the master list of one million party members would extracted and placed on separate list to make it easier for people to inspect the new members.

We want this to be as transparent as possible within the rules of the MCA, he said.

Ling stressed that transparency aside, the party would not allow the list to be flaunted or abused. He claimed there were many ways that the list could be abused but he did not elaborate further.

Keep it within the confine of the party and party members, he said.

The names of the new members will be available for inspection at the MCA headquarters from tomorrow onwards.