The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA; ; ; , initially known as the Malayan Chinese Association) is a uni-racial political party in Malaysia that seeks to represent the Malaysian Chinese ethnicity; it was one of the three original major component parties of the coalition party in Malaysia called the Alliance Party, which later became a broader coalition called Barisan Nasional in Malay, or National Front in English.
Along with the largest and third largest component party in BN, i.e. United Malays National Organisation and Malaysian Indian Congress, MCA has a significant influence over the political arena in Malaysia since its independence. Through its holding of companies such as Huaren Holdings, MCA controls The Star, which is Malaysia's best-selling English newspaper.
The party was once the largest party representing the Chinese community in Malaysia, and was particularly dominant in the early period until the late 1960s. Its fortunes fluctuated after the establishment of other political parties in the 1960s that challenged it for the Chinese votes, although it still enjoyed strong support in the mid-1990s to mid-2000s period. However, it has performed poorly in elections since 2008, with the Malaysian Chinese community mostly voting for the Democratic Action Party and People's Justice Party, and in the 2018 Malaysian general election, it lost all but one of its parliamentary seats and was relegated to the opposition. It returned to power in March 2020 as part of the alliance with Perikatan Nasional,. After the 2022 election, the party joined the government as a backbencher with Barisan Nasional supporting Pakatan Harapan.
History
Formation and early years
The Malayan Chinese Association was formed on 27 February 1949 with the implicit support by the post-World War II British colonial administration. A central purpose of the MCA at the time of its founding was to manage the specific social and welfare concerns of the populations interned in the so-called New Villages created under the Briggs Plan in response to the Malayan Emergency.
The declaration that announced the MCA as a formal political party in 1951 was written by a prominent Straits Chinese businessman, Tan Cheng Lock, its first president. In general, its early members were landowners, businessmen, or otherwise better off, while the working classes in the New Villages overwhelmingly joined the Socialist Front instead. Many prominent members of the MCA were also Kuomintang members opposed to the Malayan Communist Party. Leong Yew Koh, was a KMT major general who became a cabinet minister and later became governor of Malacca; Malaysia's first minister of finance, Henry H.S. Lee, was a KMT colonel; and Lim Chong Eu, the leader of the Radical Party and joined the MCA in 1952, was a colonel (medical) doctor in the Kuomintang.
In 1952, MCA joined force with United Malays National Organisation on a local level to contest the Kuala Lumpur municipal elections which would lead to the formation of the Alliance Party. The alliance was joined by Malaysian Indian Congress in 1954 and they contested the first Malayan General Election in 1955 as one body, and the alliance won 51 of the 52 seat contested. MCA won all 15 of the seats allocated.
Tan Cheng Lock was succeeded by Lim Chong Eu after a successful challenge by Lim for the presidency in 1958. Lim attempted to amend the party's Constitution to consolidate the power of the Central Committee, and although amendment was passed narrowly, it also split the party. Prior to the 1959 General Election, Lim pressed for an increase of the allocated number of seats from 28 to 40, but this was refused by UMNO leader Tunku Abdul Rahman. Lim was forced to back down and later resigned as president, with Cheah Toon Lock taking over as acting president. Other members also resigned from MCA to contest the election as independent candidates, which cost the party some seats. The party only won 19 of the 31 seats eventually allocated. Lim himself left the party in December 1960, later becoming one of the founding members of the opposition Gerakan in 1968. In 1961 Tan Siew Sin, son of Tan Cheng Lock and favoured by Tunku, became MCA's third President. Tan led the party to a firm victory in the 1964 General Election, winning 27 of the 33 parliamentary seats contested. In 1969, Tan established Tunku Abdul Rahman College after a proposal for a Chinese-language university was turned down by the government.