Despite losing the right to contest the Kuantan parliamentary seat, the MCA division vowed to back whichever candidate the BN fields, which is most likely to be from Umno.

When contacted, division chief Ti Lian Ker said party grassroots will do so to uphold the BN spirit.

"We will go on with our work as usual. Our machinery is already running. We have been bringing potential candidates around over the past two weeks although there was no formal announcement," he said.

T NONE i ( left ) said the matter did not come as a surprise because Umno had been coveting the seat for several years and also the complex history surrounding the seat.

He said that he had spoken repeatedly in support of fielding a candidate from his party in Kuantan which the local press had highlighted prominently, thus he did not want to elaborate further.

In the past, Ti said that the Kuantan district had three seats - Paya Besar, Indera Kota and Kuantan - thus should have at least one Chinese representative.

BN had always fielded an Umno member in Kuantan until 2004, when the seat was split into Kuantan and Indera Mahkota to be contested by MCA and Umno respectively.

Game changing tsumani

Although BN won both Kuantan and Indera Mahkota in 2004, both went to the PKR in 2008.

The Kuantan MCA division's response appear sto be much more sobre in contrast to that of Wangsa Maju MCA division's, which threatened to boycott the polls campaign if their candidate was replaced by Umno's.

As in the case of Kuantan, Umno had contested in Wangsa Maju until 2004, when it was handed over to MCA which lost it by a narrow margin in  thefollowing polls.

NONE For this general election, plans are underway to field Najib Abdul Razak's aide Mohd Shafei Abdullah ( in white songkok in photo ) in Wangsa Maju.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek said Kuantan was only "on loan" to Umno, and Wangsa Maju is still being discussed.

During the 2008 general election, MCA fielded 40 parliamentary candidates, winning 15 - its worst showing ever.

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