Mahathir expels party members over candidacy

Mahathir expels party members over candidacy

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad yesterday
announced the expulsion of 10 members of his political party
standing as independent candidates in Malaysia's ninth general
elections next week.

Mahathir, who is president of the United Malays National
Organization (UMNO) -- the country's largest political party --
warned that members who supported them would also be sacked.

"We cannot accept them because if we do, discipline in the
party will be jeopardized and everyone will contest as
independents," he was reported as saying by Bernama news agency
while campaigning in southern Johore state for the polls set for
April 25.

UMNO, which has about two million members, is the linchpin of
the 14-member ruling National Front coalition.

"People with no discipline have no place in UMNO," Mahathir
said.

Party insiders said the 10 "dissident members" were standing
as independent candidates to protest being dropped by Mahathir in
the polls.

But Mahathir said he had advised members to respect party
decisions.

"There are bound to be some who are unhappy and dissatisfied.
If we give in to make people happy, we must have 10 candidates
for one constituency," an indignant Mahathir said.

The National Front has already won 11 uncontested
parliamentary seats out of the 192 seats in the federal
parliament, as well as nine state seats out of 394 state set up
for grabs in 11 state legislatures.

Meanwhile, opposition leader Lim Kit Siang yesterday vowed not
to bow to threats by Mahathir to arrest him for allegedly fanning
racial sentiments as campaigning for next week's polls
intensified.

An adamant Lim, geared for a battle aimed at ousting the chief
minister of northern Penang state, Koh Tsu Koon, said he would
fight on for the people of Penang, Malaysia's sole ethnic-Chinese
dominated state.

"I am prepared to be detained a third time under the Internal
Security Act, " declared Lim, 54, who has twice been detained --
from May 1969-October 1970, and October 1987-April 1988 -- under
this draconian law, which allows indefinite detention without
trial.

The ethnic-Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP), of which Lim
is secretary-general, is mounting what it calls a "do-or-die" bid
to capture Penang, Malaysia's wealthiest and most industrialized
state, from the ruling National Front coalition.

Accusing Lim of stirring racial tension in his election
campaigns, Mahathir on Tuesday threatened arrest, saying the
government would take action against him "no matter what the
world has to say."

Lim, challenging Koh in the middle-class area of Tanjung
Bungah in Penang, is running a campaign portraying himself as
"Chief Minister with Power," insinuating that Koh has been a mere
figure-head, with the real power in the state wielded by leaders
of Mahathir's UMNO.

Mahathir also slammed the foreign media for helping champion
the opposition cause and warned that the authorities were
monitoring the opposition campaigns very closely.

As campaigning intensified for the ninth general elections six
days away, Mahathir's National Front coalition leaders heightened
a concerted verbal onslaught on Lim.