WHEN Parliament resumes this month, Wee Ka Siong will cut a lonely figure.

He will be the sole parliamentarian from MCA, the second biggest party in the Barisan Nasional coalition.

The MCA deputy president retained Ayer Hitam with a razor-thin majority of 303 against a challenge by Johor DAP leader Liew Chin Tong.

In an interview with The Malaysian Insight, Wee said he was “lucky” to have survived the elections and was candid about the monumental task to rebuild MCA, which saw its seven parliamentary seats reduced to one on May 9.

“It was the verdict of the people,” said the former minister at his office at MCA’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

Below are excerpts of the interview. 

Q: What did you think were the voters’ disgruntlements which led to BN’s defeat?

A: Cost of living is the main issue. They couldn’t stand the pressure. They felt their buying power had lessened and that prices kept on going up.

With the GST implementation, we did not control well when the traders tried to take the opportunity to increase prices and they put the blame on the government.

And, of course, good governance issues. When they see cases like 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), billions involved, people just thought, “You take my money away. You burden me just because of all these issues”.

Q: Critics say your party should have been more vocal about 1MDB and criticise the former prime minister.

A: It is grossly unfair to say that we did not mention anything. When you are in the government, the only channel for you to voice up your concern would be the cabinet, the highest deciding authority in the government.

They were two meetings discussing this issue. When it was brought up to cabinet, the then deputy prime minister was sacked.

And whatever discussions in the cabinet, no cabinet member can just reveal what transpired. So unfortunately, when we participated, our views could not be made known to the public and people thought we did not say anything about it.

Q: DAP said MCA was silent on the issue.

A: Unlike the (government), the opposition could say anything they like. What they do is just say it all openly, that’s all.

I can confirm one thing. I did mention during the internal discussion. I cannot reveal more because of the secrecy act, unless they want to declassify it.

Q: You are the sole survivor in your party, in terms of parliamentary seats. What was your feeling on election night?

A: It was much anticipated that night after we received news that we were completely wiped out in northern and southern Johor.

I knew that if I can be elected as the MP, I have to tell myself, “You will not be in the government. You are just an opposition MP”.

I didn’t expect that to happen so fast. Maybe in GE15. Another four or five years. But because the political earthquake happened. I did not call it a tsunami. This is really an earthquake that affected everybody.

It is not something that you can avoid. I couldn’t imagine how I could survive this GE14. I’ve gone through the entire process this past 20 over days. I’ve gone through the worst.

How this EC made blunders. I was blamed for those blunders. It was not my mistake. These are the things that happened during the campaigning period. People treated as, “Oh the government of the day did these tactics. Just to win the support”.

If you ask me, they gave all these penalty kicks to the opponents. It was not to my advantage. Did you think I like to see somebody’s head being cut out. (Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s face was removed from Pakatan Harapan billboards in GE14 in Johor.) You made it very ugly.

Q: Did you find Liew Chin Tong a tough opponent. What do you think of him personally?

A: He’s still my friend. We have known each other for 13 years.

Of course, he’s a political star. He used to defeat many seasoned politicians. He was a giant killer in Bukit Bendera, defeating the former secretary-general Chia Kwang Chye. He then moved to Kluang, where he defeated our vice-president, Hou Kok Chung.

Q: Why do you think you won?

A: I’m lucky, because you look at the statistics. Many of the constituencies that our candidates contested, we found out the support was extremely low.

But comparatively, I still got a certain level of support which allowed me to enjoy a slim majority of 303 votes. I consider myself as very lucky.

I give you an example, Simpang Renggam, 60% Malay, 30% Chinese. You know that the Chinese are more prone to supporting the opposition. And Dr Maszlee Malik won by 3,000 votes. And he’s my neighbour. I consider myself lucky. – June 1, 2018.