Umno Acting President Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan chairs the Barisan Nasional supreme council meeting in Kuala Lumpur March 8,2019. ― Picture by Ahmad Zamzahuri

KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — Umno and MIC both did not agree to disband Barisan Nasional when the coalition’s supreme council met today.

Acting BN chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said this meant the three parties could not reach the needed consensus to dissolve the coalition that is now down to just Umno, MCA, and MIC.

He also said BN will instead form a technical committee to study the issues raised by its component parties.

“The details of the resolution proposed by MCA has been studied and there is no consensus for the dissolution of BN.

“Umno and MIC feel there is no need for the dissolution,” he told a press conference after chairing the BN supreme council meeting for almost three hours here, today.

Mohamad said the committee will be formed soon at the state and federal levels.

He then asserted that none of the component parties would be sidelined within the coalition.

“We are very much intact they are my good friends, both of them (MCA and MIC). But we will deliberate all the issues that need to be dealt with,” he said, citing grievances expressed including problems from when BN had still been the federal government.

BN had governed Malaysia in one form or another since the country’s independence until the 14th general election last year when it lost to Pakatan Harapan.

Since then, its former components have abandoned the coalition in droves, whittling the 13-member pact down to its three founding members.

In its general assembly last year, MCA passed a resolution for the party to call for the dissolution of BN after previously saying the coalition was effectively dead.