The Malayan Chinese Association or MCA was formed in February 1949 with the implicit support by the post-World War II British colonial administration. That according to Wikipedia.

And Wikipedia also tells us “a central purpose of the MCA at the time of its founding was to manage the specific social and welfare concerns of the population in the so-called New Villages created under the Briggs Plan in response to the Malayan Emergency. The population in the new villages, as we all know, were Chinese.

The party later joined force with Umno which led to the formation of the Alliance party. And soon after, Indian-based MIC joined the Alliance pact.

The “Malayan” in MCA would later be “Malaysian”.

The MCA was once the largest political party representing the Chinese community and was dominant particularly in the early period of its formation and until the late 1960s.

It was once described as one of the pillars of the Alliance and later Barisan Nasional.

Despite being a strong Chinese party then representing the community, the MCA had even in its heyday depended on Umno for support and banked on the Malay votes to win elections in several constituencies. What more its bleak period. The latest example of this was the Tanjung Piai by-election in 2019.

Anyway, the MCA has been going downhill for years. By 2008, it had increasingly lost ground and public (read Chinese) support, mainly to the DAP.

In 2018, it was virtually wiped out, winning only one parliamentary seat in the general election held that year.

That prompted Umno strongman Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz to remark that shift meant DAP had become the representative of the Chinese community, going on to say “from my point of view, the party that won the most Chinese seats would be the voice of the Chinese. And that’s not MCA.”

It made sense that the MCA wanted to regain the trust of the Chinese. I do not know how successful the party is in their efforts to get back support of the community.

Hard it may be, but I had expected the MCA to soldier on.

But a couple of days ago, a report in Sin Chew Daily said the MCA is opening its doors to non-Chinese, meaning non-Chinese Malaysians can now join the party as associate members.

Apparently this was after the Registrar of Societies approved changes to the MCA constitution which the party had decided on in 2019.

I would like to ask why? Has the party given up on getting back Chinese support? Or MCA wants to be a truly Malaysian party, cutting across ethnic and religious lines?

If this is the reason, I would say congrats and good. But will or can it be realized?

I’m a Malay. Let’s make believe I’m young (which I am not, but let’s just make believe). To make it more interesting, let’s say I’m a young professional urban Malay. And I’m into politics. Would I want to join the MCA?

First thing that strikes me is the associate member part. As I see it, associate members do not have voting rights. Therefore I cannot determine who my leaders would be.

If I cannot vote, it goes without saying that I cannot stand for party elections. Hence I cannot go up the ladder.

Then what the heck for me to be in the party? Just as cosmetics? Or to get my fellow Malays to vote for the MCA?

As said earlier, Malays had voted for the MCA before, but that does not mean they would want to be MCA members.

Seriously, do you believe the Malays, especially those in rural areas who had voted for the MCA (which incidentally contested under the BN logo), would want to join the party?

Malays are spoilt for choice if they want to join political parties. We got Umno, PAS, Bersatu, PKR and even DAP to choose from.

By the way, PAS and Bersatu have associate membership as well for non-bumiputras and non-Muslims.

The “nons” have always said that made them second class members.

Now I am saying in MCA, I would be second class party member.

For all intents and purposes, to be fair to the MCA, I feel the party must have good reasons for wanting to accept non-Chinese members albeit associate members. But the timing is off.

I was told by an old friend the proposal that MCA opens its doors to non-Chinese was made by former youth chief Datuk Chong Sin Woon upon realizing the MCA power base was in a very weak situation.

His proposal was mooted back in 2016. But to me, even then it was a little too late.

Now, as pointed out by that old friend of mine David Lai, former journalist and currently Malaysian affairs consultant, “There is no market to tap into to recruit non-Chinese.”

He concurs that Malays have the parties I mentioned earlier to choose from.

“What’s left for the MCA? It’s the same with the Indian community. They are already in DAP, MIC, PPP, Gerakan and other smaller parties, and it’s not likely MCA can attract high outstanding members of the Indian community.”

Lai also agrees this move to open up MCA is already too late. Hence his advice to the party is simply this: “It would be better for MCA to focus in recruiting smart, intelligent, brilliant graduates, if possible of all races. But priority is on Chinese graduates from the universities as second liners to be groomed as future leaders. DAP has been doing this the past 20 years.”

Over to you, MCA. But the task is no walk in the park.

MCA knows this all too well. Surely.

(Mohsin Abdullah is a veteran journalist and now a freelancer who writes about this, that and everything else.)