KOTA KINABALU: Sabah MCA is gearing up to win back the Kepayan and Luyang state seats which it lost to DAP in the 2013 general election.

State party chairman Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong said the two seats were crucial and must be recaptured.

“We need to win back our voters,” he said after chairing a meeting with the Sabah MCA liaison committee members here yesterday.

Dr Wee said among the measures that would be implemented was to track down old MCA members and get them to help form a stronger election machinery for the next general election.

The Kepayan state seat was won by DAP’s Edwin Bosi while Luyang was won by Dr Hiew King Cheu.

However, Dr Hiew joined MCA in 2014 after becoming a Barisan Nasional-friendly Independent, 10 months after he quit DAP.

Dr Wee said he would leave it to the MCA leadership to decide whether it wants to contest in one of 13 new state seats, particularly seats in the Silam parliamentary constituency for the next polls.

“MCA will be paying a courtesy call on Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman before the state MCA convention on Oct 8 to discuss this. However, it is still premature to say anything,” he added.

Dr Wee was responding to a statement by Sabah MCA deputy chairman Datuk Francis Goh on their interest to field a candidate in the east coast area in GE14.

Goh said the state MCA would request for one of the new seats in Silam as there were many Chinese voters in the area.

“Silam MCA is one of the most active Barisan divisions,” he added.

Earlier in the meeting, Dr Wee handed over a RM200,000 cheque to Ng Li King, the headmistress of SRJK(C) Pai Wen, Ranau, to be used to rebuild the school which was damaged in the 2015 earthquake.

The amount is an addition to an earlier RM300,000 donation by China-based multi-level marketing company Perfect Group, which was founded by Malaysian businessman Tan Sri Koo Yuen Kim.

-The Star-