Mahathir vows crackdown on political violence

Mahathir vows crackdown on political violence

KULIM, Malaysia (AP): Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad vowed Saturday to crack down on political violence, hours after three opposition leaders were charged with alleged crimes during a recent by-election victory for their party.

The trio and four other opposition figures have been accused of illegal assembly and rioting, which can punished by up to two years in prison, for stopping busloads of pro-government supporters they claimed were being brought in to illegally vote in the election Nov. 29.

No violence was reported during the incidents last month for the Lunas district assembly election in Kedah, Mahathir's home state, and opposition groups accused the government Saturday of simply waging a vendetta because it lost the election.

Mahathir, in an interview with the national news agency Bernama, lumped together an Islamic fundamentalist terror cult with democratic opposition groups to assert that there was a growing trend of political violence.

"As such, next year we hope that this can be overcome," Mahathir said. "We are studying the measures."

The National Justice Party, led by the wife of jailed former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, accused Mahathir's government of being a sore loser by arresting opponents in the middle of the night and bringing charges against them.

"This does not augur well for the future of the nation," Azizah Ismail said in a statement. "What hope is there for democratic change in Malaysia if each time the ruling elite loses an election, it becomes vindictive and launches a vendetta?"

In Kulim, northern Malaysia, hundreds of supporters of the arrested Justice Party leaders - vice chairman Tian Chua, information chief Roslan Kassim, and deputy secretary-general Gopala Krishnan - were kept under watch by riot police outside the courthouse.

No violence was reported. The crowd chanted "Reformasi!" or reform, the rallying cry of Anwar during street protests before he was jailed in September 1998 after posing a challenge to Mahathir's long rule.