BN amendments: MIC rejects majority decision

By G Vinod- Free Malaysia Today,

KUALA LUMPUR: MIC is firmly against Barisan Nasional's proposal to abolish the consensus-system in favour of a majority based decision, said its president S Samy Vellu today.

“We have deliberated the matter in the Central Working committee (CWC) and we will stand firm by our decision,” he told reporters after chairing the CWC meeting at the party headquarters here.

Yesterday, FMT reported that several controversial amendments were in the pipeline to be tabled during the Nov 28 BN convention. Among them is to scrap the consensus system.

This means that if a component party did not agree to the inclusion of another party into BN, it would be meaningless as the decision would be based on a majority vote.

Currently, political parties intending to become a BN component must have the consensus of all coalition members. If any one party were to object, the application would be rejected.

If approved, the amendments would also rob component party leaders of their say on who to field during elections.

There would be no allotment of seats to various political parties as practiced in previous general elections and a committee would decide on the candidate for a particular parliamentary or state seat.

The seats could be allocated to independent members to contest as well.

'Direct membership proposal is good'

Meanwhile, Samy Vellu said the CWC had already sent its response to the committee working on the proposed amendments.

“Being one of the original members of the ruling coalition, we have indicated our suppport to some of the proposals and our reservations on some,” he added.

Giving another example, Samy also objected to the proposal that MIC cannot participate when BN is in talks with other Indian based political parties.

“Being in the coalition for 53 years, we have reservations on that as well,” he said.

However, the 74-year-old president, who is slated to step down in January, said MIC had no objection to the proposal to have direct membership into BN as it would strengthen the coalition.

“MIC has no objections over bringing in direct members and other NGOs to join the coalition. If BN can bring in 10 million individuals to join it, well and good,” he said.

On another matter, MIC vice-president and Human Resources Minister Dr S Subramaniam said the party had submitted numerous proposals during cabinet meetings regarding what it expected in the Budget 2011.

The proposals, he said, were on the uplifting of the Indian community.

“Among the issues highlighted in our proposals are Tamil schools and economic development opportunities for the Indians,” he said.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, who is also Finance Minister, would table the budget in Parliament tomorrow at 4pm.