Umno may resort to cooperating with rival PAS if it discovers that Chinese voters no longer support the ruling coalition, an MCA leader said.

MCA Senator Ho Lim Teck said Umno's continued rule the country rested on Chinese voters and this was evident in the last general elections.

"If the Chinese shatter their (Umno's) hope, then what kind of policy will they make to protect themselves?" Ho asked a crowd of some 1,000 Chinese voters at a Indera Kayangan by-election campaign dinner function by MCA Youth at a temple.

He said out of frustration, Umno may work with PAS since both parties have similarities in religion, language, culture and race.

Ho, who is MCA's political training bureau chief, said even if Umno did not work with PAS, the party "may draft policies which are more extreme than PAS' in order to regain its footing among the Malay-Muslims".

Double-talk

He also rapped Keadilan for practising double-talk by portraying itself as a defender of Chinese interests on one hand while assuring Malays of its intention to improve their status on the other.

"Keadilan was set up to save Anwar (Ibrahim), it was not meant to champion the survival, struggle and future of Chinese," he said.

Ho said PAS which was pushing an Islamic agenda with Keadilan through the Malaysian Muslim Youth Movement (Abim) faction within the party.

Polling for the by-election will be held on Saturday. Nearly all of the 7,976 voters are either Chinese or Malays.

'My good friend'

BN candidate Oui Ah Lan told the MCA supporters at the dinner last night that she is the right person to "get them what they want".

She said all the issues that Keadilan had highlighted during the by-election campaign were just the party's stand and did not come from its candidate Khoo Yang Chong, whom she said she regarded as her "good friend".

She said her main interest was education but she believed that politics could be the means to bring about changes.

Oui, who resigned as special assistant to Perlis state chief Shahidan Kassim to contest, said she has already assured the state-level Barisan Nasional of "at least 98 percent support" from Chinese voters

"Let me get an official post to bring your voice to the state assembly and I will work for the interests of you all," she told the crowd at the dinner. After her speech, Oui left for an open air concert at Taman Perlis nearby.

MCA Youth chief Ong Tee Keat who was expected to attend the dinner did not turn up.