Battlelines for Malaysia's poll drawn in Cyberspace

By Jocelyn Gecker

KUALA LUMPUR (AP): Call him the Big Brother of Barisan. As Malaysia's hotly contested general election draws near, Zein Isma Ismail spends his workday glued to the Internet monitoring political thought posted online.

As the head of a government Internet surveillance team, Zein Isma's focus is riveted to Cyberspace -- where unlimited freedom to speak has spawned more than 100 politically charged Malaysian websites in the past year and where battle lines are fast being drawn ahead of Malaysia's Nov. 29 polls.

"I monitor every development on the Internet that is anti- government. I overview every single statement on every website," said Zein Isma, a member of the ruling Barisan National coalition.

He then dashes off rebuttals and counter claims for pro- government websites.

"I've been producing about 50 to 60 articles a day," he said.

For decades, Malaysia's incumbent government has had the distinct advantage of a pro-government press, which is not allowed to televise political debates and gives little space to the opposition in local newspapers.

Now, with thousands of Malaysians turning to the Internet for alternative news, the government is not pulling any punches.

"It will be Internet warfare," said Zein Isma, who rigs 13 computers to surf for criticism of the government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad -- whose ruling Barisan National, or National Front, coalition faces its toughest challenge since independence from Britain in 1957.

Politics online surged last year after Mahathir, Malaysia's ruler for 18 years, sacked his popular former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar's ouster and jailing sparked violent anti- government street protests. It gave birth to a unified opposition movement and scores of Internet news and chat sites calling for Reformasi -- Anwar's battle cry for political reforms.

The uproar prompted Mahathir's ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) to set up a special committee earlier this year to scout for potential defamation suits, keeping a watchful eye on the Internet.

What they found was unnerving, conceded Zein Isma, head of the Internet division for UMNO's Committee on Defamation. A study done in August showed that 34 anti-government websites registered 8,000 hits an hour during the week; the figure doubled on weekends.

With the click of a mouse, mudslinging over Anwar's treatment spans some 100 websites, although fewer than half appear to be actively updated.

Anwar, who is serving a six-year jail term for corruption, denies charges against him of graft and illegal sex, calling them politically motivated.

One popular anti-government website called FreeMalaysia, which posts sharply written political analyses of Mahathir's government, has had more than 448,000 hits since January.

A pro-government website called, Anwar the Truth, features articles labeling Anwar as a ladies man, a homosexual, a cunning political maneuverer. It allows viewers to download a secretly taped flirtatious conversation allegedly between Anwar and a woman identified as "someone's wife."

The government plays down the Internet's potential impact on voters in Malaysia, where most of the Southeast Asian nation's 22 million people live in rural areas with limited Internet access.

But the nation's opposition coalition sees the Internet as a crucial part of its strategy to break the government's monopoly on information and help achieve its election goal, said Rustam Sani, spokesman for the four-party Alternative Front coalition.

The opposition does not expect to unseat Mahathir, Asia's longest serving ruler, but hopes to break the two-thirds parliamentary majority held by his ruling coalition since 1969.

"Messages from the Internet are being faxed and photocopied," for circulation in villages around the country, Rustam said. "We are distributing handbills, we are going from house-to-house. We are doing everything."