MCA presidential candidate Wee Ka Siong (photo, right) says that the party should discuss its stand on Barisan Nasional during its upcoming AGM.

"As a founding partner of BN, MCA reserves the right to discontinue (its participation in) the coalition.

"However, BN's original founders followed the will of the majority then and thus, any decision to leave BN should be made in consensus with the party's will (and) we must also consider the will of the people as expressed via the party's leadership and central delegates.

"Therefore, this issue is best brought up during the upcoming party's annual general assembly, in order to openly discuss the best course of action and come to a carefully considered consensus," he said in his manifesto, which was launched in Wisma MCA today.

Previously, MCA presidential hopeful Gan Ping Sieu had suggested that a referendum be held to determine if the party should remain in BN.

Gan said he was of the opinion that MCA should leave the coalition because of the intensifying relations between Umno and PAS, but added that the decision should be reached through a democratic process.

A 'formula for success' for MCA

Meanwhile, Wee said that his manifesto, titled "A Renaissance MCA, MCA a New Era", is a "formula for success" for the party as it was written after he had gathered feedback from party members nationwide.

"For the past month, I went to the north and south of Malaysia, the east and the west, and even to Sabah, to collect the members' thoughts and draft a 'formula for success' specially for us."

Although Wee, in his manifesto, mentions that MCA needs to be more moderate and inclusive, he also said that there will be no rush in opening the party's membership to other races.

"I found that up to 80 percent of the party's members questioned the strategy of opening up membership to other races.

"They pointed out that while we keep saying we have to encourage plurality and diversity, some of the new parties in Pakatan Harapan are still 'Malay party' that only accept members of one race.

"Those parties even won parliamentary seats (in GE14) and did not suffer great losses despite being race-based. One good example is Amanah – its party membership is not open to non-Malays," he said.

Wee added that including the views of different groups is more important than opening up membership to all.

"We will not open up membership in a rush," he said, explaining that he did not want it to result in an oversight of other crucial matters.