The party’s secretary-general Loke Siew Fook said this following his announcement that Young Syefura Othman will be contesting in Bentong, where Wong was the incumbent.
Young Syefura won the state seat of Ketari, which is under the Bentong parliamentary seat, in the last general election (GE14), her first as a candidate.
At a press conference, Loke said the party spoke with Wong about fielding him as a candidate elsewhere in GE15.
“We wanted to take a bold and strategic move for the Bentong seat. We suggested that he contest in Cameron Highlands instead, but he disagreed,” he said.
When asked about the reasons for his refusal to contest in Cameron Highlands, Loke said Wong had to reveal this himself.
“I spoke with him for three hours on the issue of the Bentong seat. At the end of the day, it’s his personal choice. I can’t force him. We had to make a decision and move on. I have a strict timeline.”
According to data from 2018, Bentong has around 67,359 voters, of which 47% are Malays while 42% are Chinese.
Wong defeated former MCA president Liow Tiong Lai in GE14 by more than 2,000 votes.
Liow, a former health and transport minister, was the Bentong MP from 1999 to 2018 and had beaten Wong when the DAP man first vied for the seat in the 2013 general election.
Meanwhile, MCA president Wee Ka Siong was reported to have said that the party wanted Liow to contest the seat again in GE15.
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