Gerakan ready to work with MCA again, says Lau

Gerakan president Dominic Lau (fifth right) with the Perikatan Nasional election machinery on the campaign trail for the Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election in Kampung Asam Kumbang.

HULU SELANGOR: Gerakan says it is ready to forge ties with MCA once more should its former ally decide to quit the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

Gerakan president Dominic Lau said his party was open to anyone who wished to work with Perikatan Nasional (PN), including MCA if it could accept the coalition’s ideology.

“Gerakan will not interfere with other parties’ affairs, that’s their problem.

“However, PN welcomes all (parties) who agree with our ideology in championing the rights of the people,” he told FMT after campaigning in Kampung Asam Kumbang for the Kuala Kubu Baharu polls.

“If MCA can accept PN’s ideology, Gerakan has no issue collaborating with it,” he said, adding that cooperation with MCA was not something unfamiliar to Gerakan and other PN component parties.

Gerakan, a founding member of BN, left the coalition shortly after the 14th general election (GE14) in 2018 which saw Pakatan Harapan (PH) taking over Putrajaya.

It said the decision was made “after serious and comprehensive deliberation, reflection and consideration of the current political developments of the country post-GE14”.

Yesterday, MCA president Wee Ka Siong said that Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s call for the unity government to be “defended” at the next general election (GE16) was merely the latter’s own view.

Wee said no decision had been made at the BN level as the coalition’s components had yet to discuss the matter.

When asked about MCA’s stand should Umno decide to defend the unity government, Wee did not reject the possibility of his party going in the opposite direction.

The unity government was formed on Nov 24, 2022, with Anwar Ibrahim at the helm after PH, BN, Gabungan Parti Sarawak and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah agreed to work together.

This followed the reported call by then Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Al-Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, for the formation of a unity government after five days of a hung Parliament.

However, the relationship between former rivals PH and BN has been testy, with DAP and MCA leaders frequently trading barbs with one another.