Two Wongs are not right
Wednesday, 17 March 2010 19:22
KUALA LUMPUR – Former central committee members Wong Mook Leong and Wong Nai Chee are not eligible to contest in the upcoming MCA polls.
The party's legal bureau ruled that the two, who resigned from the CC on March 4, are not delegates to the general assembly.
Citing Article 38 of the party constitution, bureau chairman Lim Hong Sang said it clearly states that they must be elected from among assembly delegates to to be eligible to contest.
On Tuesday, former MCA legal bureau chief Leong Tang Chong had said the two Wongs have the right to contest as provided for under Article 41 of the party's constitution.
He had also said that any MCA member who had been in the party for more than three years was eligible to contest the CC post and need not be a central delegate, as stipulated in Article 120.1 of the party constitution.
It is not immediately known whether the two men will file their candidacy although Leong had publicly advised them to submit their forms.
Countering Leong's assertion, Lim said: "We respect his right to his opinion but we beg to differ in all aspects."
Categories of eligible delegates
He said Article 33 of the MCA constitution provides very clearly for the several categories entitled to attend the general assembly. They are:
- members of the incumbent committee
- delegates duly elected by divisional assemblies
- members of Parliament and state legislative assemblies
- chairman of state liason committees and chairman of divisions.
Lim added that Article 21 provides specifically for the number of office bearers to be elected and that they shall be elected from amongst the delegates to the general assembly.
"In other words, only MCA members who are delegates to the general assembly are entitled to the post of office bearers of the MCA central committee," he told a press conference at the MCA headquarters here on Wednesday.
Lim said those articles supersede the argument made by the former legal bureau chief.
Mook Leong had served under six presidents and had been a CC member since the tenure of the late Tan Siew Sin, who was president in 1961.
Nai Chee had been a member of MCA for three years.
Thirty-one posts up for grabs
Mook Leong and Nai Chee, both aligned to former vice-president Liow Tiong Lai, had resigned with 11 other CC members on March 3.
Foon Meng was quoted in The Star as saying the two men do not not fall in any of the categories stipulated in Article 33.
There are 31 posts to be contested — president, deputy president, four vice-presidents and 25 central committee seats.
The MCA has 191 divisions nationwide and over 2,000 delegates are eligible to vote.— Malaysian Mirror
