Malaysia's opposition calls for new elections

Malaysia's opposition calls for new elections

Associated Press, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia's opposition alleged fraud and demanded new elections on
Wednesday, after a wholesale rout by Prime Minister Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi's coalition that confronts them with near-extinction
in Parliament and state governments.

Meanwhile, Abdullah faced expectations to fulfill campaign
promises to fight corruption and could replace one-third of his
Cabinet with a lineup decided as early as on Saturday, the pro-
government New Straits Times newspaper reported. Some ministries
may be restructured.

Voters dealt the opposition, led by the fundamentalist Pan-
Malaysian Islamic Party, a stunning blow in Sunday's general
elections by delivering Abdullah's secular National Front
coalition 90 percent of the seats in the 219-member Parliament,
based on 65 percent of the popular vote.

The Islamic party, known as PAS, saw its parliamentary bloc
collapse from 27 to seven, while the People's Justice Party was
nearly obliterated, losing four seats and keeping only the one
held by leader Azizah Ismail, wife of jailed former deputy
premier Anwar Ibrahim.

"If Abdullah doesn't take action, people will compare this
result with elections held during Saddam's rule in Iraq," said
Justice Party youth chief Ezam Mohamad Noor.

PAS and the Justice Party accuse the nominally independent
Election Commission and the government of conspiring to fix the
results with bribery, stacking election rolls with phantom voters
and other irregularities.

Both parties vowed to amass evidence and petition the High
Court to strike down the results and hold new elections.

Any legal challenge is highly unlikely to succeed. Malaysia's
courts lost much independence under the 22-year rule of Mahathir
Mohamad. Judges have regained some of their authority in recent
years, but important decisions rarely go against the government.

"We have unanimously decided to reject the entire results of
the general elections," said PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang after a
five-hour meeting of the Central Committee. "The elections were
full of cheating and fraud. We are ready to have elections
again."

Hadi lost his parliamentary seat as well as the office of
chief minister of Terengganu, an oil-rich state that swung back
to Abdullah's coalition.

The Islamic party denied that its proposals for a hard-line
religious state - with penalties such as amputating thieves'
hands - were a factor in its defeat. The prospect terrifies the
large, non-Muslim Chinese and Indian majorities, though PAS has
said they'd be spared.

"There's no reason we must change just because we didn't get
the votes," said Nasaruddin Isa, the PAS secretary-general. "We
are not a pragmatic party, as far as our principles are
concerned."

But elsewhere, the opposition was divided. Lim Kit Siang,
veteran leader of the secular Democratic Action Party, was
returned to Parliament after a five-year hiatus, helping boost
his group's total seats from 10 to 12. His party broke a tactical
alliance with PAS two years ago after losing support because of
the Islamic state project.