Despite initial opposition both within Umno and MCA, Tun H.S. Lee was one of the key leaders who persuaded the two communal parties to create a coalition that has since governed the country. 

TUN Lee Hau Sik is generally credited with initiating in 1952 an UMNO-MCA electoral alliance that marked the start of an enduring inter-ethnic coalition, a partnership which soon included the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) and which led Malaya to independence.