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By Romen Bose Agence France-Presse
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s
coalition government faces a by-election in January which analysts
say will be a critical test of public reaction to its reform
promises after disastrous polls in March.
The by-election in northern
Terengganu state, a battleground between the ruling United Malays
National Organisation (UMNO) and the Islamic opposition party Parti
Islam Se-Malaysia (Pan-Malayan Islamic Party), nicknamed PAS, was
triggered by the death of a deputy minister.
Election Commission deputy
chairman Wan Ahmad Wan Omar announced Friday that the vote would be
held on January 17, with parties to declare their candidates on
January 6.
After wrangles in the past over
allegations of fraud and vote buying, Wan Ahmad said that Mafrel
(Malaysians for Free Elections) would be allowed to monitor the
process.
“We like having Mafrel as
observers as it boosts the confidence of people and transparency,”
he told a press conference.
The vote comes at an unfortunate
time for the United Malays, which leads the Barisan Nasional
(National Front) coalition that was humbled in the March elections.
The coalition lost a third of parliamentary seats and five states to
the three-member opposition alliance among whose top leaders is
Anwar Ibrahim.
Since then the UMNO-led National
Front it has been in a state of disarray that is unlikely to be
resolved until its annual assembly next March, when deputy prime
minister Najib Razak is expected to replace unpopular premier
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Infighting and rivalries helped
the ruling coalition lose an August by-election that allowed
opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to return to parliament—a decade
after he was sacked as deputy premier and jailed on sex and
corruption charges. Before Anwar was prosecuted by then UMNO chief
and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, he was the deputy premier whom
everyone saw as Mahathir’s political heir apparent.
Analysts said the United Malays
faces a tough fight against the PAS, which along with Anwar’s
Keadilan party and the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party, makes
up the opposition alliance.
“It will be a classic battle
between two Malay political parties in a Malay heartland,” said
James Chin, professor of political science at the Kuala Lumpur
campus of Monash University.
“If PAS wins it means the
people do not believe UMNO’s reform program. It means their
sentiments against the ruling party since the March elections are
still there,” he said.
“It could also demonstrate that
voters do not have confidence in Najib Razak’s leadership and
believe that UMNO is not capable of any reform.”
Najib, who as deputy premier will
direct the ruling party’s election campaign, has promised to make
good on Abdullah’s promises of change, which were never realized
after he came to power in 2003.
But there are doubts whether the
United Malays, which has become plagued by corruption in the
half-century it has dominated Malaysian politics, is capable of
undergoing the changes that voters are demanding.
The party won the vacant seat of
Kuala Terengganu in March, but only with the slimmest of majorities.
“There is no escape but face
the Kuala Terengganu by-election, which is wholly unexpected and
could not have come at a worse possible time for UMNO and Barisan,”
the Star newspaper said in an analysis.
It
said that a major factor would be the 11 percent of Chinese voters
among the more than 80,000 eligible to vote. Malaysia’s ethnic
Chinese and Indian communities abandoned the coalition in the March
polls.
A victory would be a major boost
for the PAS, which lost control of Terengganu state in 2004, after
having held it for just one term and alienating voters with extreme
measures such as enacting Islamic “hudud” laws.
Since then it has dropped its
hardline rhetoric and tried to reach out to Malaysia’s minorities
who are alarmed over rising “Islamization” in the multicultural
country.
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