PETALING JAYA: On the latest episode of Keluar Sekejap released on Tuesday (May 7), Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong was the 101st guest of the podcast started and hosted by former Umno leaders Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahril Hamdan.
The MCA president was also the first Barisan Nasional elected representative to appear on the podcast, which currently has more than 723,000 subscribers on YouTube and TikTok.
For two hours, Dr Wee took questions from the duo on current national politics, his views on the performance of the unity government and DAP, the state of the economy with the looming rationalisation of subsidies, and reiterated his comments that the Centralised Database Hub (Padu) must be preceded by an Omnibus Act to keep user data safe.
Major portions of the podcast centred on MCA’s position as a founding member of the Barisan Nasional coalition and its future relationship with the Chinese Malaysian electorate.
Dr Wee said that the party would remain loyal to Barisan and stressed that any coalition decision must still be made in consensus with every member party involved.
“I give priority to Barisan first. Now, someone else has gone to hug another person. This is akin to prioritising someone else,” he said when the hosts brought up that another party had become much closer to the Pakatan Harapan coalition as part of the unity government.
“We are in the same (Barisan) family, but the neighbour who had always insulted us has become the pursued one. (But) the family should be discussing its stance first,” he said.
Dr Wee reminded that before DAP was friendly with Umno, much of the DAP’s strategy was to ferment voter disdain for Umno, which in turn hit MCA hard at the polls.
“For each criticism against Umno, MCA had (to) answer for it. That’s the problem,” he said.
He said now that the DAP was in power, the people should evaluate whether the party would deliver the promises that it claimed MCA had failed to deliver.
“Now, there is nothing stopping you. In fact, let them have a longer time (in government) to see if they can deliver or not,” Dr Wee said. “Now, with 40 seats, can you do what you promised?”
He said that DAP’s previous claims of MCA’s failing to serve the Chinese community had no factual basis.
“DAP claims there was no systematic allocation for Chinese, but through Barisan’s administration, we allocated allocations to all types of schools,” he said.
Dr Wee reminded that RM100mil each for the 2012 and 2013 budgets was allocated for building, upgrading, and maintaining Chinese-type national schools, whereas Pakatan Harapan allocated RM50mil in its debut 2019 Budget.
He also reminded Khairy and Shahril of DAP’s promise to recognise the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) for admission to public universities: “To this day, nothing has been said of it.”
He also again refuted the perception of MCA being a party for the rich and wealthy, saying that the party helped all groups.
“A corporate leader (MCA founder Tun Tan Cheng Lok) started this MCA. But after that, they championed the interests of the community, about citizenship, about welfare,” he said.
On transport matters, Dr Wee also suggested that the government set up a superagency to coordinate traffic and transportation connections and land acquisition matters for transport projects between federal and state governments and their agencies, agreeing with Khairy that Malaysia needs more holistic traffic planning.
Dr Wee said certain existing connections between stations were too far apart, requiring passengers to cross multiple levels or platforms to access the next connection.
“There’s no seamless connection. There needs to be a body that monitors all of these,” he said.
Near the end of the podcast, Dr Wee also voiced his disagreement with Khairy and Shahrul that sitting out campaigning for the unity government’s Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election candidate was akin to sabotage.
“DAP has always said it doesn’t need MCA. After that’s said, how would I kowtow and say I will help campaign?” he said.
He added that the MCA had not warned its members not to vote for any candidate in the May 11 by-election.
“We have made an official statement, but we have never said don’t vote because it is the right of all to vote,” he said.
