KL between rock and hard place over polls
KL between rock and hard place over polls
By Nelson Graves
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): A gloomy stock market and rumblings within his coalition may be giving Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad ample reason to consider holding elections later rather than sooner.
The conventional wisdom until recently was that Asia's longest serving elected leader would ride an economic recovery and strike the opposition in September with snap polls.
Many still expect the unpredictable Mahathir to opt for September to face what could be his toughest electoral fight since winning power in 1981.
The 73-year-old veteran could hit the disparate opposition before they have time to close ranks, and capitalize on a trip later this month to China seen as an opportunity to please members of that key ethnic minority back home.
"We are still working on the assumption they will take place in September," Syed Husin Ali, president of the opposition Parti Rakyat Malaysia, told Reuters.
The government is expected soon to announce economic data for the second quarter marking an official end to the deepest recession since independence in 1957.
But Mahathir and cabinet colleagues have been sending signals the ground may not yet be fertile.
"There is room for improvement to ensure Barisan Nasional gets a thumping victory in the election," Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said this week.
"Certain divisions need to fine-tune several areas of concern. But I am not going to reveal what the weaknesses are."
By all accounts, disgruntlement over the sacking and imprisonment of Mahathir's former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, must still be considered a nagging worry for the prime minister's Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition.
Anwar's sodomy trial began in June and is draging on, keeping his name and face in the media limelight nearly a year after he was sacked and four months after he was jailed for corruption.
Fallout from the bitter split between Mahathir and Anwar continues to settle on the political and economic landscape.
A public rift appeared last week within the women's wing of Mahathir's United Malays National Organization, showing that the upheaval stemming from Anwar's humiliation was not over.
Critics of the government say Anwar's associates are being targeted by investigations into business wrongdoings and will be punished in an ambitious bank merger plan that would squeeze dozens of financial institutions into six.
Some Chinese are sore that financial institutions run by that ethnic group will be subsumed in the merger scheme, lending an element of race to the controversial exercise. The government says the plan will balance financial and racial interests.
"A lot of people are banking on the elections being delayed," a senior broker said. "The Chinese are pretty upset."
Perhaps more important is the stock market, which despite a rally on Thursday remained 15 percent below its 1999 peak hit in early July.
Worries that foreigners might haul money out after Sep. 1 when a tax on repatriated investments ends have kept shares on the defensive.
"There is no looming sign of elections," a European diplomat said. "But we haven't written off September. He's unpredictable."
Some are banking on October on the assumption the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange's main index will have risen by then from its level of about 720 points on Thursday to at least 820 -- which earlier this year Mahathir called its fair valuation.
Others say Mahathir will wait until November after he presents the 2000 budget and a liberal dose of largess.
"It is possible he might call elections later just because of the budget, hoping for a better recovery in the share market and that the Anwar case will be over," Syed Husin said.
Most rule out December -- the annual Moslem fasting month falls then -- and say 2000 would be difficult because some 650,000 new voters join the rolls in January.
"Mahathir knows they are from the younger generation and not necessarily eager to vote for the Barisan Nasional," a political analyst said.