Mahathir fears election violence, 'Bernama' says

Mahathir fears election violence, 'Bernama' says

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad warned on Monday of opposition violence in coming elections and accused foreign media of working against him, the official Bernama news agency reported.

"Supporters of the opposition comprise those who have taken part in demonstrations last year," he said, referring to protests by supporters of his ousted deputy Anwar Ibrahim, jailed for six years for abuse of power.

"I am sure they will resort to violence to achieve their objective."

Mahathir, who has ruled for 18 years, said the opposition planned to use dirty tactics while seeking help from foreigners and said campaigning for the next election should be kept short to avoid security problems.

"We will not adopt such dirty tactics. We will not seek the help of foreigners," he said.

"We believe in the people in this country, they are the ones to determine our fate and future and the government they want to rule."

He added: "The campaign period should not be long because we have had this experience in 1969 when we had a long campaign period and tension built up and in the end there were the racial riots."

Although the current term of parliament does not expire until April next year, speculation is growing that Mahathir will call snap polls to capitalize on recent signs of economic recovery.

Mahathir said opposition parties were "using the foreign media to attack us" during anti-government protests supporting Anwar, who went on trial on a new charge of sodomy on Monday.

"The foreign media works for the opposition," he said. "At present, safeguarding the nation's security is a problem because the foreign media ... their television will trail the police.

"If the police were to hit a demonstrator, that's what they will show," he said. "When the police were to use a little violence to control the situation, they will record this and the footage will be shown throughout the world with the purpose of tarnishing our image."

Mahathir also criticized a plan by opposition parties to forge an alliance.

"When (the) election approaches, they will be busy establishing cooperation between their parties but this is not a serious and meaningful cooperation. The various parties have their own agenda," he said.

"Malaysians will be confused with their different policies. Before they have formed a government, they are already fighting among themselves on who will become prime minister.

"They will not be able to cooperate during the election, much less after the victory they have hoped for."

A new opposition party headed by Anwar's wife has forged an alliance with three other parties to oust Mahathir.

The four parties, including Parti Islam Semalaysia (PAS) which controls the northeastern state of Kelantan, hope to have a common manifesto and an agreement not to stand against each other in constituencies.

But cracks have recently appeared over PAS' policy goal of establishing an Islamic state and over who would be prime minister.

Further problems emerged when the party headed by Anwar's wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, recruited defecting members from another party in the alliance, the Democratic Action Party (DAP). Mahathir's United Malays National Organization has ruled Malaysia since independence from Britain in 1957. It has 168 seats in the 192-seat parliament while the DAP has nine and PAS seven.