With a 1,000-strong crowd of supporters in attendance, MCA deputy president Liow Tiong Lai, who is contesting for the party’s top post in the coming polls, unveiled his nine-point manifesto of reformation for the political party that suffered a massive defeat in the May 5 general election.

The manifesto, themed ‘For our next generation, chart a new course!’ is aimed at transforming MCA into a dynamic, confident and effective political party.

“The MCA is today facing its greatest challenge since its inception. We have been humiliated and we now face annihilation.

NONE “The dismal results should be a wake up call for all of us. We must ask ourselves what went wrong and how can we address this?” said Liow ( centre ) in his speech.

Liow’s large-scale manifesto launching ceremony held at Wisma MCA’s San Choon Hall, saw the presence of thousands of supporters, among them at least 60 division chiefs.

“I cannot and will not allow our great party to fade into irrelevance or collapse as a result of the selfish acts of a few,” stressed the Bentong MP.

Liow faces a three-cornered fight for the MCA president’s post in the coming party polls scheduled to be held on Dec 21.

The two other candidates are former MCA president Ong Tee Keat and party veep Gan Ping Sieu.

'Chinese support has droppped'

In a determined tone, Liow urged the party members to “inform, reform and perform” to restore dignity and values to MCA.

Liow had also reminded the party members to concede the fact that Chinese support for the party had dropped by about 30 percent.

“This shows that most of the MCA members have abandoned us,” he said, adding that it was important for MCA to have organisational reform to solve the dilemma.

Below are the nine points in Liow’s manifesto:

1) To reaffirm MCA’s political standing and power as a founding member of BN;

2) Institutionalise Chinese education and Chinese culture;

3) MCA internal reforms must be transparent and accountable to the public;

4) Upgrade and modernise the party’s general election campaigning mechanisms;

5) Upgrade the party leadership development programmes and undertake capacity-building to groom young talents;

6) Improve inter-racial communication to foster better bonding with the people;

7) Promote and strengthen MCA Youth and Wanita divisions for smoother and better leadership;

8) Modern and innovative communications strategy;

9) International networking with political parties with a common vision or a similar ideology.

‘Review cooperation module with Umno and BN’

Later, in a press conference, Liow reiterated that MCA should review its cooperation module with Umno and other BN component parties.

Pointing out that the perception was shared by the Chinese community, Liow said MCA must extinguish the image that Umno was the dominant partner in the coalition.

“MCA is part of Barisan Nasional and we would like to ensure that our presence in Barisan Nasional is meaningful, relevant and can speak out for the Chinese and resolve Chinese issues effectively,” he said.

On party president Chua Soi Lek’s earlier speech to of warn money politics in the party, Liow said he had stood in the frontline all this while to combat such an unhealthy political culture.

Last week, Chua had said in Kelantan that party members were free to decide whether to accept bribery or not, but urged them not to vote for those who used bribery in the party polls.

Asked if he would revisit the resolution on rejecting cabinet posts, Liow said this was up to the central delegates to decide.  

“We are busy with party elections now, and I’ve not thought of this (resolution) so far,” he said.

The 2,000-over central delegates had disallowed party leaders from joining the cabinet twice through votes on resolutions.

Meanwhile, Liow, who is also leading MCA’s transformation committee, said a 257-page transformation report had been finalised, and the recommendations would be implemented after the party elections.

In the three-cornered fight for the party presidency, Liow said he was confident that the central delegates would support him, although there was a possibility the votes would be split.