Malaysia's rival parties clash over an Islamic state

Malaysia's rival parties clash over an Islamic state

KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Tensions are running high in
Malaysia's opposition coalition over the Muslim fundamentalist
member's insistence that it will set up an Islamic state if it
comes to power, ignoring protests from its ethnic Chinese
coalition partner.

Leaders of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party said on Monday that
the dispute would end if the country's minorities realize that
the party's designs for an Islamic state are different from what
extremist rebels claim to be battling for in the neighboring
Philippines.

But the Democratic Action Party, which represents ethnic
Chinese interests in the four-party coalition, has stepped up
threats to leave the two-year-old alliance unless the Islamic
group abandons its ambition.

Such a move would split opposition support in future
elections, unraveling the significant gains that the alliance
made against Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's ruling front in
general election in 1999.

"We pray it does not come to that," Nasharuddin Mat Isa, the
Islamic party's secretary general, told The Associated Press.
"All we want is a fair, tolerant system of government with the
teachings of Islam as a peaceful way of life."

Nasharuddin said many people among Malaysia's ethnic Chinese
and Indian minorities are fearful because they think that
oppression or violence run together with the creation of an
Islamic state.

"We are not like the Abu Sayyaf," he said, referring to a
Muslim separatist group in the southern Philippines that is
currently holding 20 hostages, including three Americans.

The group has gained international notoriety over the past
year due to repeated kidnappings, ransom demands and threats of
beheadings.

But the Muslim Filipinos that the Abu Sayyaf claims to fight
for are a tiny part of the predominantly Roman Catholic
Philippines, compared to the nearly 13 million ethnic Malay
Muslims who form the majority of Malaysia's 23 million people.

The Islamic party claims that true Muslims support its plans,
a tactic that has been denounced as a politicized distortion of
the religion by the more secular United Malays National
Organization headed by Mahathir.

Debates about an Islamic state in Malaysia are not new, but
they regained prominence recently when Abdul Hadi Awang, deputy
leader of the Islamic party, vowed to close a popular casino in
eastern Pahang state if it wins Pahang in the next general
election, scheduled for 2004.

Abdul Hadi's comments stirred condemnation from Karpal Singh,
an ethnic Indian lawyer and opposition leader who is known for
saying more than 10 years ago that "PAS can form an Islamic state
over my dead body."

The controversy has since caused a war of words in the local
media between the Islamic party and its Chinese ally, with
Mahathir pointing to this as proof that the two parties are
"incompatible."

Lim Kit Siang, the Chinese party's national chairman, warned
that if Islamic leaders remain adamant on setting up a religion-
based state, then the alliance would be "no longer tenable."

He claimed the Islamic party's attitude would cause most
voters from the sizable ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, who
are mainly Buddhists, Christians and Hindus, to reject the
coalition.

The Islamic party currently has 27 seats in the 193-member
Parliament. The ethnic Chinese party holds 10, while their other
partner, the National Justice Party, has five.

Mahathir's ruling National Front coalition has 148 seats -
more than a two-thirds majority - and the remaining three are
held by an independent party.

In the next general election which must be called by 2004, Lim
said voters faced with the choice of an Islamic state and a sixth
term for Mahathir as prime minister would choose the latter.

Syed Husin Ali, president of the allied Malaysian People's
Party, urged DAP and PAS leaders to halt their bickering and iron
out their differences in private.

PAS leaders should realize that an Islamic state can only be
brought about by amending the federal constitution, which
requires approval by a two-thirds parliamentary majority, he
said.

The Alternative Front gained ground among ethnic Malays in the
1999 polls, with PAS as the major beneficiary. But Mahathir's
ruling coalition still controls two-thirds of the seats in
parliament.