A group of 50 MCA Team B supporters today disputed the number of members who were deleted from the partys new membership list, claiming that it does not correspond with the decrease in delegates attending the upcoming party annual general meeting in June.

MCA Youth legal bureau chief Simon Lim said this was a big discrepancy during a press conference to highlight the matter to the public at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur today.

Although it was stated in an MCA publication on Feb 10 that a total of 2,677 delegates would attend the AGM, party secretary-general Dr Ting Chew Peh instead announced this week that only 2,667 will be there.

Yet Ting, who is heading the party headquarters election steering committee on Monday announced that only 868 members were deleted from the 2002 MCA membership list.

Lim countered that if 10 delegates were dropped, there should be between 3,000 and 6,000 names deleted from the membership list.

If only 868 names have been removed (from the membership list), why were so many delegates (10) removed? Lim asked.

During the press conference, the group which came from various states in Peninsular Malaysia demanded the steering committee give an explanation to the discrepancy.

The group included several state assembly representatives including Perlis MCA state leader Loh Yoon Foo. Loh said he is concerned that the number of delegates keeps dropping.

He said that he was earlier informed that some 3,000 delegates would be attending the AGM.

Serious problem

One MCA delegate represents between 300 and 600 party members in his or her division.

In the AGM, one MCA division must have at least 500 members and its first 500 members will be represented by three delegates. For the next 4,500 members, the division will be represented by one delegate for every 300 members.

For party divisions which have between 5,000 and 10,000 members, every 600 members will be represented by one delegate.

Meanwhile, Penang state assembly representative for Pengkalan Kota, Lee Hack Teik said the discrepancy is a serious problem and should be resolved before the party elections.

Only with a clean membership list can we hold the elections, he said.

The committee received 9,121 cases of complaints during the 21-day inspection period for the membership list which included 135,000 new members.

MCA leaders have been divided into two camps  Team A and Team B  since the party acquired two Chinese dailies last May. Team A, which favoured the deal, is led by president Dr Ling Liong Sik while Team B is led by deputy president Lim Ah Lek.

The party elections, held every three years, will start at branch level this month, division level in April, and state level in May. The central leadership will be chosen on June 29 at the national annual general assembly.