A five-member reconciliation committee headed by Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has been set up to bring the feuding factions of MCA to a roundtable starting tomorrow, to pursue the agenda for peace and stability.

Informed sources told malaysiakini that the outline of the negotiation, determined by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad before he left yesterday for an official visit overseas, will seek to maintain the status quo of MCA leadership.

This means the party elections will probably not be held as scheduled in June while party president Dr Ling Liong Sik and his deputy Lim Ah Lek will continue holding their posts until a date agreed to by both sides.

However, the details of the peace agenda will be discussed and eventually decided at the roundtable.

Sources believe that this may be related with the BNs plan to call for general elections early next year as a conflict-ridden MCA may not be able to deliver Chinese votes to the ruling coalition.

It was learnt that, apart from Abdullah, Chinese entrepreneurs Lee Kim Yew and Lim Kok Wing who are closely linked to Mahathir are also sitting on the reconciliation committee.

The other two members are believed to be close aides of the premier who helms the ruling BN.

No news, please

Earlier this afternoon, according to the sources, both Ling and Lim had met separately with other leaders in their respective factions to obtain the mandate to proceed with the roundtable.

Negotiations at the roundtable are expected to be concluded by the end of this week in order to reach a consensus on both sides before the extraordinary general meeting fixed for April 21.

Last week, the Lim-led Team B, which has repeatedly alleged that phantom members existed within the party, issued a notice to convene an EGM despite the party ruling earlier that no such meeting was necessary as many of the 810 delegates who signed the requisition had withdrawn, making it less than the one-third of the delegates as required by the party constitution.

Team B had threatened to produce evidence of phantom members at an appropriate time, either before or at the EGM.

Meanwhile, it was also learnt that officials from the Prime Ministers Department had met editors from major newspapers in the country and expressed wish that there will be no news reports about MCA until a date to be specified.

Sources said this move was to ensure that the negotiations will not be thwarted by any media coverage which could spark off more unnecessary reactions from both factions.

Mahathir, before leaving for Morocco, Libya and Bahrain yesterday, had reiterated that no one, including himself, should be making any more statements regarding MCA affairs.

Failed succession talks

In recent weeks, the two factions in MCA had openly criticised and accused each other of wrong-doing.

Ling and Lim had previously engaged in succession talks but their relationship soured when the proposed solution initially agreed to by both sides and supposedly endorsed by the party central committee ended up as a failure.

Lim had later accused Ling of not keeping to his word that he would not serve as the party president beyond 2002.

MCA elections started last month at branch level and will proceed with the divisional polls on April 28.

The divisional elections are significant as the new batch of 2,667 delegates will be chosen to attend the annual general assembly on June 29 where central leaders are voted in for a three-year term.