Wow! MIC got 700,000 members (that’s about 35% of estimated 2 million ethnic Indians in Malaysia). And wow! nearly \u00a040% of those members are not voters!<\/p>\n
Looks like big task for MIC to get members registered.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nMIC president G Palanivel revealed today that almost 40 percent of the 700,000 party members have not registered as voters.\u00a0
He therefore urged all divisions and branch leaders to step up efforts to get these members registered as voters before the 13th general election.\u00a0
When opening the 17th Kuala Langat MIC division meeting in Banting, Palanivel said data compiled by the Election Commission (EC) and the party headquarters showed that only 321,000 MIC members were registered voters.\u00a0
“We must first get our (MIC) members to register as voters to ensure they will be in a better position to seek assistance from the government or Barisan Nasional (BN) leadership,” he said.\u00a0
He also reminded MIC grassroots leaders on the maturity level and changes in perception of voters who were more independent now in making their decisions.\u00a0
“They used to support us (MIC) and BN, now we really need to work hard to gain their trust back in order to secure their support,” stressed Palanivel.\u00a0
He also asked the delegates to identify all the voters in their respective branches and ensure they were re-registered in the respective constituencies.\u00a0
“This will help them in securing better lobbying power when they seek assistance from their respective representatives and avoid travelling to other towns or states to cast their votes,” he said.\u00a0
On MIC’s effort to reactivate all the defunct or deregistered branches, Palanivel explained to the delegates that the party wanted to go further under his leadership.\u00a0
“We want not only to see a return of old members, but we go further than that by recruiting more new members.\u00a0
“I want to see genuinely new faces in the party and lately I’m glad to witness some new members attending our (MIC) functions,” he added.\u00a0
At the Kuala Langat meeting, some 120 delegates unanimously adopted a resolution urging the party leadership to secure two cabinet posts for the party.\u00a0
Currently, MIC is only represented by S Subramaniam in the cabinet as the Human Resource Minister.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/p>\n