Chow said the comments by Liow were very simplistic in nature and questioned if anyone had ever seen MCA using its party logo when contesting in past general elections.
“MCA, in 60 years, has never used its own symbol to contest in polls. Maybe the younger generation forgets history too easily.
“Since the days of the Alliance, and subsequently Barisan Nasional, MCA has never used its own party symbol to contest,” he said in his speech at the launch of the Datuk Keramat election operations centre here earlier today.
Present were Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, Datuk Keramat assemblyman Jagdeep Singh Deo, Seri Delima assemblyman RSN Rayer and Batu Lanchang assemblyman Law Heng Kiang.
Chow said Liow should not view the logo issue as something important as it was merely a requirement under election laws.
Liow reportedly accused DAP of not having principles by agreeing to give its rocket symbol a rest and use PKR’s instead.
Liow said DAP was trying to gain the Malay votes by having its candidates contest the general election under PKR’s logo.
“This (the rocket) is the symbol they (DAP) have been using for over 50 years and they are willing to pull the rocket down for all their parliamentary and state seats,” he told a crowd of 3,000 MCA delegates attending the launch of the MCA manifesto at Wisma MCA here today.
“So the saying of ‘Mahathir returns and rocket is gone’ comes true,” Liow said, referring to DAP’s working relationship with the Pakatan Harapan chairman.
Mahathir announced on Friday that candidates of all PH component parties — DAP, Amanah, PPBM and PKR — would contest under the PKR banner in GE14.
Chow also said that the decision to use the PKR symbol as a common logo was a sacrifice by PH component parties.
Citing DAP as an example, Chow said the usage of the common logo meant that DAP’s rocket would not be flying after 50 years of contesting in the general elections.
“It is a sacrifice. Amanah is a new party. It wanted to show its identity as a party that is different from PAS, but it has also sacrificed by not using its own logo.
“Similarly with PPBM, which has run into trouble with the Registrar of Societies (RoS), and hence is unable to use its logo,” he said.
Chow, who is also a state executive councillor, said PKR had made a positive sacrifice for its logo to be used as a common one for the opposition pact, with the symbol now upgraded from a party logo to that of a coalition.
He also welcomed a clarification made by Election Commission chairman Mohd Hashim Abdullah, who today explained that PH candidates did not need EC’s approval to use the PKR symbol.
Hashim said they must, however, only use the logo of the ticket under which they were campaigning.
Hashim had made the clarification following confusion which arose from news reports saying that PH needed EC’s approval for using the PKR logo as planned.