Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary— General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, at the Temerloh DAP Branch Anniversary Dinner held at Temer1oh, Pahang on 12th August 1983 at 8 pm.
Datuk Dr. Neo Yee Pan should explain why MCA wants the political per of the Malaysian Chinese, which is already grossly under-represented, to be further diluted in the 1980s and 1990s
The MCA had claimed, especially after the April 1982 General Elections, that it is the only political party which could speak for the Ma1aysia Chinese. In fact, many MCA leaders had gone the country urging Malaysian Chinese to support the MCA to the extent that ‘Chinese is MCA, and MCA is Chinese’ in the way that ‘Malay is UMNO, and UMNO is Malay’.
Yet the ironic fact that the political power, position and future of the Malaysian Chinese, today is a far cry from that of the Malays is precisely because of the full agreement of successive generations of MCA leaders to the most unfair arid unequal political system where the Malaysian Chinese’s political power is not fully reflected by their numbers.
Thus, when in 1974, the electoral constituencies were redelineated in such a way whereby the one—man one—vote principle is discarded, and there is a great weightage to the advantage of the rural seats and to the detriment of urban electorate, the MCA gave full agreement.
Again, in last week’s Parliamentary debate on the Constitution Amendment Bill, where indications are that the tendency where the weightage in electoral delineation of new Parliamentary and State Assembly constituencies would be even more unfavourable between rural and urban seats, the MCA showed no interest whatsoever.
What is worse, the only MCA MP to speak in the Constitution Amendment Bi1l, and therefore clearly representative of the MCA’s new leadership under Datuk Dr. Neo Yee Pan, made the unthinkable proposal that the Elections Commission in redrawing new constituencies for the 1980s and 1990s, should ensure that there is no single constituency where more than 60 per cent of the electorate should come from one racial group
.
This MCA’ s sole parliamentary spokesman in the Constitution Amendment Bill, Mg Cheng Kuai from Lumut, knows that it is impossible to redelineate constituencies in Kelantan, Kedah, Perlis, Trengganu where there would be less than 60 per cent Malay voters. In fact, there would be constituencies in these states where the Malay electorate in some constituencies may be as high is over 90 per cent.
But Ng Cheng Kuai and the MCA leadership know that it is perfectly possible to redelineate urban constituencies like in Penang, Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Malacca and Johore in such a way whereby there is no single urban constituency where Chinese voters exceed 60 per cent.
We have here the spectacle of the MCA, which claims to be the spokesman of the Chinese, and wants to reach the objective of ‘MCA is Chinese, and Chinese is MCA’, actively and openly proposing to further dilute the already grossly under—represented political political position of the Malaysian Chinese.
Datuk Dr. Neo Yee Pan, as the new MCA leader, should explain why the MCA wants the political power of the Malaysian Chinese, already grossly under—represented, to be further diluted and weakened in the l980s and 1990s, as the new constituencies to be drawn up by the Elections Commission would have effect for the next 10 years. Otherwise, Datuk Dr. Neo must be prepared to declare that Ng Cheng Kuai’s shocking proposal in Parliament did not represent either his or the MCA’s official view!