Mahathir in Sabah for talks

Mahathir in Sabah for talks

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
flew to the eastern state of Sabah on Friday for a two-day
"working visit" amid growing talk of an impending state election.

Mahathir and his wife were welcomed by Sabah Chief Minister
Bernard Dompok in Kota Kinabalu. Dompok said Mahathir discussed
the state election but "not very much" during a meeting with
members of the state Cabinet, the official Bernama news agency
reported.

Mahathir met religious leaders and attended a rally by youths
from the ruling National Front coalition later on Friday before
meeting on Saturday with local members of the United Malays
National Organization (UMNO), the dominant party in the
coalition.

Sabah, in the northeast part of Borneo, has to hold state
elections by the middle of next year. Following the last election
in 1994, it introduced a power-sharing system whereby the post of
chief minister is shared between the three main ethnic groups --
Moslems, non-Moslem natives and Chinese.