NAZRI Abdul Aziz has said he will be attending the Barisan Nasional supreme council meeting on Friday despite a threat from MCA and MIC that they will not attend if he shows up.

The BN secretary-general said both parties should come for the meeting and not throw a fit over the remarks he made campaigning during the Semenyih by-election.

“I will be there. I don’t have any problems facing them. They should not be like this. They should come,” said Nazri today at the Umno party headquarters in the Putra World Trade Centre today.         

The component parties claim Nazri’s appointment as secretary-general is invalid under the coalition’s constitution.

MCA president Wee Ka Siong and his MIC counterpart, S.A. Vigneswaran, said under the BN constitution, the appointment of the secretary-general is to be made after consultation with the supreme council.

They said their parties will not attend the Friday meeting if Nazri insists on being present as secretary-general.

Wee and Vigneswaran said Nazri’s appointment was never discussed or officially agreed on by the supreme council, but was announced instead by BN chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi at the opening of MIC’s general assembly last October.

“If Nazri is stubborn and attends the meeting, its validity will be questioned,” they said.

Nazri today said he had no problem quitting as secretary-general if his appointment was not done according to the coalition’s rules.

“I will quit if it’s not legal. It must be done according to the law,” said the Padang Rengas MP.

MCA and MIC had taken issue with Nazri’s remarks on the Semenyih campaign trail, which they said smacked of racism.

Wee and Vigneswaran said Nazri did not respect the component parties in making his remarks.

However, Nazri fired back, saying BN would not lose anything if the two parties left it, and that he had not made any racist statements.

On the campaign trail in Semenyih, Nazri had said the appointment of non-Muslims as the attorney-general, chief justice, and finance minister was causing fear among the Malay Muslim community.

The former de facto law minister had also said non-Malays should not question Malay privileges as the former group also enjoys special privileges such as vernacular schools.

Some media reports also had said he had asked for vernacular schools to be shut down, but Nazri said he had never said these schools should be closed.

Following its annual general assembly last month, MCA called for the dissolution of BN, following the coalition’s defeat in the 14th general election last year.

Over the weekend, MCA had again reiterated its call for dissolution during its 70th anniversary celebration in the capital. – March 5, 2019.