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."