Malaysian opposition party expects snap election soon

Malaysian opposition party expects snap election soon

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuter): Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is expected to call for a snap national election soon to secure another five-year term, opposition members said yesterday.

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, president of the Melayu Semangat 46 (Spirit of '46 Malays) party, said he expected polls soon based on the "latest developments and reactions of the prime minister."

"We have our election machinery ready as we feel the polls are likely to be held in November," the state news agency, Bernama, quoted him as saying in his east coast Kelantan state stronghold.

Opposition Member of Parliament Wee Choo Keong also picked November as a likely month for the election, which must be held before the end of 1995, when the Mahathir government's term expires.

"We expect lightning polls, as usual," Wee told Reuters in Kuala Lumpur.

In the 1990 elections, Mahathir's National Front coalition swept 127 of the 180 parliament seats and won 10 of the 11 state legislatures at stake.

Mahathir himself revived talk of snap polls, which had subsided until he said early this week that elections were imminent and his party needed to be operationally prepared.

The prime minister, however, remained coy about the timing.

"It will be soon but soon is relative. If it is within the context of 1,000 days, then it will be very soon but if it is a shorter period, then it is a long way off," he said in the north Borneo state of Sarawak.

Wee said a November election could use the new electoral rolls prepared from a recent voter registration exercise that garnered 900,000 new voters.

"Most of the new voters are from the ruling coalition," he said. Nine million of Malaysia's 19 million people will vote in the coming polls.

Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang was more cautious, saying the polls date is "anybody's guess" although his Democratic Action Party (DAP) is "ready for a general election now."

The DAP, which is trying to capture the northern Penang's state legislature, has already scheduled 10,000-seat dinners between Oct. 3 and 7 on the island state.

Lim predicted a hard fight for the opposition in the coming polls as Mahathir's coalition would use Malaysia's six years of eight percent annual economic growth to sway voters.

"There is no scarcity of issues but the public's perception of issues is what matters," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Wee, also in the DAP, said the opposition could fare better if Mahathir allowed public rallies during the polls campaign period.

Public rallies were banned after the 1969 elections following riots that killed hundreds of people.