MCA becomes latest party to express unhappiness with PM Anwar’s unity government

KUALA LUMPUR - The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) has become the latest party to make clear its dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s sprawling unity government.

At the party’s annual general meeting on Dec 7, delegates backed a motion to end cooperation with the Democratic Action Party (DAP) – which supplies the most MPs in the ruling Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition – before the next general election due by early 2028.

The move, which confirms

a Straits Times report

, throws the ball into Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi’s court. As chairman of Barisan Nasional (BN), he has repeatedly insisted that the coalition, which includes MCA, must continue its electoral pact with PH to fend off the opposition Perikatan Nasional (PN).

The MCA resolution stated: “If any BN component party cooperates with DAP in any form during the upcoming general election, this would indicate that the BN spirit has effectively ceased to exist, and our party will independently determine a new direction.”

MCA party sources told ST that the implications of the resolution are that the party could leave BN, should Umno president Zahid insist on clinging on to Datuk Seri Anwar’s PH.

MCA president Wee Ka Siong told party delegates: “Since coming into power, DAP and PH have made U-turns on countless issues, abandoning promise after promise. They have not only betrayed the people, they have even betrayed their own principles.

“If, by the next general election, some BN allies still wish to continue cooperating with them, that would only mean the BN spirit has completely vanished. In that case, we can only say, ‘Good luck! MCA has its own path.’”

Other parties have also expressed their unhappiness with the PH-led multi-coalition government.

In early November, the United Progressive Kadazan Organisation left the PH coalition ahead of the Nov 29 Sabah state election. On Nov 16, the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), at its national assembly,

resolved to quit

BN and join PN, but left the final decision to the party’s top leadership, which later the same month wrote to the opposition pact to ask about the process of joining the alliance led by former premier Muhyiddin Yassin.

The MCA resolution comes after years of grumbles over its diminished role since BN – along with several other coalitions and parties – decided to back Mr Anwar as prime minister after the November 2022 General Election gave Malaysia its first ever hung Parliament.

For decades, the MCA and DAP have clashed in seats with a significant Chinese electorate.

At the 2022 general election, MCA won just two seats in the 222-strong federal legislature compared with DAP’s 40, making the latter the largest party in government.

As a result, MCA has practically no role in the Anwar administration, while DAP has five Cabinet ministers, six deputy ministers and an array of appointees across government agencies. MCA has also hardly contested the seven state polls held from 2023 to 2025, while DAP and Mr Anwar’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat have contested the lion’s share of seats with a significant Chinese electorate.

Furthermore, MCA grassroots members have increasingly complained that Umno now prefers to deepen cooperation with DAP instead of its own coalition partner.

Still, DAP’s recent drubbing at the Sabah state polls, which saw Mr Anwar’s PH coalition winning just one out of 22 seats it contested, has raised eyebrows. DAP lost all eight seats it stood in, with an exodus of Chinese voters to local outfit Parti Warisan.

Analysts say that the same could happen at the next general election if there is a viable alternative to DAP on the national level.

Thus, observers are watching MCA’s next move.

Although MCA’s sway among the Chinese – who make up about a fifth of Malaysian voters – has greatly diminished in the past two decades, its presence in BN symbolises the coalition’s multicultural nature.

BN – whose initial incarnation consisted of Umno, MCA and MIC before it expanded to include other parties post-independence in 1957 – ruled the nation for six decades uninterrupted until its 

shock defeat at the 2018 General Election

.

Should MCA form a pact with the largely Malay-Muslim nationalist PN, it will bolster the opposition coalition’s

aspirations to be more representative of Malaysia’s ethnic diversity

.

At the MCA event, party chief Wee also reflected on the results of the Sabah state polls, in which BN won just six of the 73 assembly seats, down from 14 in 2020, with MCA losing both the wards it contested.

“The Sabah election results have sent a clear message: We can no longer rely on Barisan Nasional allies to secure bumiputera votes for MCA,” he said, using the term that groups together the Malay majority and native aboriginal minorities.

MCA also passed a rare resolution for a ruling party, calling for the sacking of a Cabinet member, in this case Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek.

Calling for Mr Anwar to replace the minister, the party said she has “demonstrated inadequate leadership and initiative for reform, failed to address pressing issues such as

bullying and violence

in schools”.

The party also pointed to “unreasonable restrictions on Chinese school fund-raising and hall rentals, lack of transparency in funding allocations for different school streams, and the persistent shortage of qualified teachers”.