Multi-racial MCA?

PETALING JAYA: MCA plans to open its doors to non-Chinese Malaysians in the near future, as part of its party transformation plan to broaden its support base.
For starters, its Youth wing has been asked to start engaging non-Chinese and have them as "associate members", a move which MCA Youth chief Chong Sin Woon (pix) told theSun has been approved in principle by party president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
"Remaining a single-race party will eventually make MCA weak, when we try to get support (only) from the Chinese community especially when Malaysia is a multi-racial country that practises multi-culturalism," Chong explained.
He said although the idea would not go down well with certain members, especially the veterans, it was felt that this is the path the party should embark on.
He said the party has to deliberate on this now as MCA cannot continue to use only the Chinese angle to view and deal with issues raised by the public.
As such, the issue will be raised at the party's annual general meeting and once agreed upon, the constitution will be amended to facilitate the taking in of non-Chinese as associate members.
According to Chong, the party's top leadership is constantly having ongoing discussion over the matter.
"Nevertheless, this is still a good start for the party to determine the pros and cons and further fine tune this initiative.
"Whether or not there will be any change to the party name when party membership is opened to non-Chinese has not been considered at this point of time," Chong said, adding it would be up to the party leadership to decide.
He said, however, it would benefit the party in the long run especially when some of these associate members know the Chinese language, as more non-Chinese students in the country can now speak and write Chinese.
According to the party secretary-general's report, as of Sept 3 last year, MCA has about 1.07 million members of whom 238,689 are with the Youth wing.