COMMENT | Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Ong Kian Ming should not be so ridiculous to suggest that MCA wants the government to abolish Bumiputera rights.

When MCA vice-president Chew Mei Fun urged DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng to stop the Pakatan Harapan government from organising or initiating the proposed 2018 Congress on the Future of Bumiputeras & the Nation, she was merely reminding Lim of what he had declared earlier – that he is "not a Chinese" but a Malaysian.

Under 'new Malaysia' and the new Harapan government, the rakyat were promised governance on merits and a level playing ground.

Definitely, the new government was not voted in or given a mandate by 90 percent of Chinese voters to initiate another Bumiputera-centric governance under Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Ong, who was formerly MCA staff and researcher in our thinktank, the Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research, should know that it was DAP who had questioned, criticised and wanted to remove the bumiputera policies introduced by BN under Mahathir’s 22-year rule.

It was MCA who had then defended the initiatives taken to assist the bumiputera, which was in turn, heavily criticised by DAP.

MCA would also like to thank Ong for his years of service in helping the party to defend these Bumiputera policies initiated under Mahathir’s rule then.

Now, after 60 years, the people have voted in DAP to govern a new Malaysia with the hope and expectation that we will move forward on a more progressive Malaysian-centric administration, focusing on nation-building – instead of organising a race-based bumiputera congress initiated by a DAP-dominated government.

DAP has over the years built a track record of attacking MCA on all the institutions, programmes and policies favouring bumiputera in line with the Federal Constitution.

Ong should remind the DAP leadership of their promises to the Chinese, and help explain MCA’s concerns of a bumiputera congress at this juncture to the Harapan government, instead of being lame by suggesting the abolishment of bumiputera rights.

He has cunningly passed the buck to MCA in an attempt to white wash DAP’s previous anti-bumiputera stance, now that they have sneakily obtained a semblance of Malay support by using the PKR party symbol in the last election.

Is DAP now of the opinion that BN has not done enough for the bumiputera, and all this while, DAP was wrong in opposing BN’s efforts in helping them? Thus, the need for a PH government initiative to have a bumiputera congress whereas their focus and promises in all their electoral campaigns have always been non-racial?

TI LIAN KER is MCA publicity spokesperson and Religious Harmony Bureau chair.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.