MCA president Chua Soi Lek today brushed aside declarations by its ground leaders that they are closing the party's service centres in response to the poor support from the community.

Instead, he said that they were just "taking a rest" after a long and gruelling election campaign.

"That (closing of service centres) is not true. After a long period of politicking for five years and an intense campaign period, a lot of people are taking a rest.

NONE "Those parliamentary representative service centres need time to change their billboards as they are no longer MPs so do the coordinators, so they are not closing down but just adapting to a new political scenario," he told a press conference at the MCA headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

He added the fact that people were up in arms over the possibility of the centres bringing down their shutters showed the rakyat still needed them.

"Why question MCA closing down service centres for five days or a week when DAP doesn't even have service centres," he said.

Liow to head revival task force

Meanwhile, Chua said his deputy Liow Tiong Lai will lead a special task force on reviving the party after its dismal 13th general election performance and its report will be presented to the party's central committee.

"There has also been a lot complaints of sabotage and they will all be referred to the disciplinary board," he said.

Chua also reiterated that MCA will abide by the party's general assembly resolution not to join the government for its worse than the 2008 general election performance.

"The party will abide by the resolutions made in the 2011 and 2012 annual general meetings that MCA will decline all government posts, if the party performed worse in the 13th general election."

Approach later, party number two Liow echoed this, saying that he will abide by the resolutions of not joining the government even though he succeeded in retaining his Bentong seat.

"But we need to ensure that this decision does not affect our future performance and the task force will look at how to strengthen the party," he said.

When pressed if this means the special task force will look at whether the resolution not to join the government should be overturned, his reply was: "I don't want to jump the gun."

Similarly, the possibility of proposing names as replacement for MCA representatives who must not join the government would also be discussed by the task force.

He added that he will ensure that the task force's report is completed as soon as possible as it is crucial to the future of the party.

Liow was also coy on whether he would contest for the party's presidency, stating that he would only make an announcement when he "crosses the bridge".