UMNO may suffer same fate as Kuomintang: Mahathir

UMNO may suffer same fate as Kuomintang: Mahathir

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia's ruling party will suffer the
fate or Taiwan's Kuomintang or India's Congress unless it heeds
the "wake-up call" given by last November's general election,
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday.

"1999 holds an important lesson for us. The erosion of support
for UMNO is a wake-up call for the party," the veteran premier
told senior officials of the United Malays National Organization
(UMNO) before its annual meeting.

"We must strive to revive our party's image...we want UMNO to
shift back to its original struggle for religion, race and the
country."

Mahathir told members of UMNO, which was founded in 1946 and
has held power in a coalition since independence in 1957, that
the fate of the Kuomintang, of Congress and of President Robert
Mugabe could befall them.

Mugabe's ZANU-PF, who has also ruled since independence, is
facing a tough challenge in an impending election.

Mahathir told members to "remember the party's struggle, learn
from its history and the history of political parties which had
fought for independence in other countries and how they were
defeated.

"I hope we can stay longer than those parties...but for that,
we must learn how to carry ourselves so that the people will
continue to like us and to support us."

The National Front coalition kept its two-thirds parliamentary
majority last November, partly thanks to the Chinese and Indian
minorities.

But its largest component UMNO lost 22 seats and ceded control
of a second state assembly to the Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS).
PAS also tripled its parliamentary seats to 27, challenging
UMNO's credentials as the natural party of the country's Malay
majority.

Most analysts believe that Mahathir's sacking of his
charismatic deputy Anwar Ibrahim, and Anwar's subsequent jailing,
played a large part in splitting the Malay vote.

"Our struggle has not ended, there is still a lot to do,"
Mahathir said. "When the Malays can stand on their own two feet
and compete with anyone.... That is our aim and that's when our
struggle will end."

The government, which has always been Malay-dominated,
launched an affirmative action program for Malays in 1971, two
years after bloody race riots directed against the Chinese.
The policy, still in force in a different form, aims to narrow
the wealth gap with the more economically successful Chinese. It
reserves a number of college and university places for Malays,
provides them with cheaper homes and requires that a minimum 30
percent of shares in public companies be held by Malays.

Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will Wednesday
tell members they must listen to the people to woo them away from
PAS, a senior member close to Abdullah told AFP.

Abdullah will speak at the annual meeting of the youth and
women's wings, which this year includes elections for senior
leaders of both wings.

The three-day general assembly of the full party starts
Thursday when elections for its senior leaders will be held.
Mahathir, who says this will be his last term as premier, and his
current preferred successor Abdullah are assured of election to
the top two posts.

"Citing UMNO's poor performance in last November's polls, he
(Abdullah) will urge them to go to the ground, listen to people's
woes and woo them back into UMNO and away from PAS," the senior
member said.

"He will press them to meet the people, especially the younger
generation, and impress upon them that UMNO champions and defends
Malays, Islam and the people."