[Watch] “The Best Among The Bad Options” — Chua Soi Lek On Why Chinese Voters Should Still Choose MCA

Former MCA president Tan Sri Dr Chua Soi Lek is urging Chinese voters to back DAP only in majority-Chinese seats — and vote BN everywhere else — warning that DAP has grown too comfortable and is starting to take the community’s support for granted.

Fernando Fong/Malay Mail

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Former MCA president Tan Sri Dr Chua Soi Lek has urged Chinese voters to adopt a more strategic approach at the ballot box, warning that allowing DAP to grow more dominant could erode meaningful checks and balances in government.

Speaking on the Keluar Sekejap podcast hosted by Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahril Hamdan, Dr Chua proposed a constituency-based voting framework: continue backing DAP in Chinese-majority seats where the community makes up 70% or more of voters, but shift support to MCA and Barisan Nasional (BN) in mixed constituencies.

This way, we can avoid the post-election scenario we see now, where a single party is overly powerful and dominant.

Election night in Ipoh, 2013. DAP flags fill the streets as results roll in across Perak. MCA would survive the night — but only just, holding on to one parliamentary seat and one state seat in a state it once called home. (Pix: Fernando Fong)

Dr Chua, who served as Minister of Health from 2004 to 2008 and later as MCA president from 2010 to 2013, is known for his blunt political assessments — a style that has defined his public commentary since retiring from active politics following MCA’s poor showing in the 2013 general election.

His warning carries a pointed edge.

He claimed some DAP leaders had grown complacent, assuming Chinese support was automatic and guaranteed, with candidates parachuted into constituencies at the last minute and still winning easily.

They might even think, what’s so hard about winning an election? In the end, these leaders disappeared.

No Heroes, Just Better Options

Perhaps the most striking admission came when Dr Chua acknowledged there was no substantial difference between MCA and DAP — but argued MCA was more sincere.

It’s about choosing the best among the bad options.

He also flagged a troubling trend: between 10% and 15% of Chinese voters were considering spoiling their ballots or boycotting elections altogether — a signal, he suggested, of deepening disillusionment with unfulfilled reform promises.

Dr Chua warned that abstaining carried its own risk, as parties that won without community support might later disregard their concerns entirely.

Dr Chua warns that MCA must modernise or fade. In Papan, a ghost town in Perak, one branch office suggests the fading started a long time ago. (Pix: Fernando Fong)

He urged BN and MCA to modernise, specifically calling on both parties to abandon traditional political approaches and build stronger social media presence, particularly on TikTok, to reconnect with younger voters.

Turning to Johor ahead of the state election, Dr Chua claimed Chinese and Indian support for BN was recovering, crediting Menteri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi’s accessible leadership style and community-focused governance — citing RM50 million channelled to the Chinese community and RM20 million in aid to the Indian community over three years.

In GE15, BN secured nine of Johor’s 26 parliamentary seats.

Dr Chua sees room to grow — three to four additional seats, he predicted — but drew a hard condition: MCA cannot move without Umno’s ground support, and the coalition cannot win if it does not function as one.

The irony is not lost on anyone paying attention. Eighteen years ago, on 8 March, 2008 — the night Malaysia’s political landscape cracked open — DAP rode a historic wave that broke BN’s two-thirds parliamentary majority, swept Penang clean, and sent Lim Guan Eng to the 28th floor of Komtar as the state’s first DAP Chief Minister. It was the birth of Pakatan Rakyat, and DAP was its moral conscience, its loudest voice against money politics and corruption.
Nga Kor Ming, now a minister and DAP deputy chairman, was very much part of that voice — hammering MCA and BN from the opposition bench with the full conviction of a party that had never tasted federal power.

Scandal Didn’t Finish Him, His Own Party Did

Dr Chua, from Batu Pahat, is a University of Malaya graduate who rose through Johor politics before being appointed Minister of Health, where his effectiveness made him popular with the public — and a target of friction within MCA’s senior leadership.

In January 2008, intimate DVD footage of him with a woman was widely distributed and surfaced publicly, and he resigned immediately as Health Minister and MCA vice-president — choosing to apologise rather than deny, a move that earned him grudging respect even as it ended his ministerial career, drew extensive local and international media coverage, and laid bare the fragile line between a public figure’s private life and political survival.

He defied political convention by staging a comeback, winning the MCA Deputy Presidency later that same year and eventually the party presidency in 2010.

His tenure as president was defined by internal battles and a struggle to restore the party’s relevance, efforts that ultimately fell short when MCA won only seven parliamentary seats in the 2013 general election — its worst performance on record.

Dr Chua, now 79 years old, took responsibility for the loss; he did not contest the subsequent party election and retired from active politics that same year.

In his 2018 memoir, Like Me or Hate Me: Rising from the Political Ashes, he argued that internal envy within MCA did more damage to his career than the scandal ever did.

The culprits behind Chua’s sex tape included several individuals arrested for distributing the DVD, as well as the individuals connected to the sting operation.

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