Victorious Mahathir to name his new Cabinet on Friday

Victorious Mahathir to name his new Cabinet on Friday

KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad, fresh from winning an unprecedented fifth mandate in
polls but facing a resurgent opposition, will announce his new
cabinet on Friday, his office said.

Mahathir was not expected to make major changes, but his
cabinet choices will mark his first moves towards countering
strong electoral gains by Islamic fundamentalist parties.

Mahathir, who has kept an unusually low profile since the
polls, will meet the king at 10 a.m. (9 a.m. Jakarta time) and
unveil his new government at 4 p.m., the Prime Minister's
Department said. Ministers will be sworn in on Tuesday.

Mahathir's 14-party Barisan Nasional coalition won a three-
quarters majority in the lower house of parliament in the early
general elections, held on Nov. 29.

But his United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the
coalition's main party, lost ground to the Parti Islam se-
Malaysia (PAS) in parts of the Malay heartland.

UMNO's setbacks have complicated Mahathir's task as he needs
to meet the Islamic fundamentalist challenge without alienating
ethnic Chinese and Indians who now hold a larger portion of the
Barisan Nasional's seats in parliament.

PAS president Fadzil Noor was named opposition leader on
Wednesday, putting a Moslem into the post for the first time
since Mahathir assumed power in 1981.

PAS's gains have given Mahathir reason to pause, and he was
taking longer than usual to name his federal cabinet. After
winning a landslide victory in 1995, he took a week to name his
government, while this year it will be nearly two weeks.

The stock market has been rattled by speculation that Finance
Minister Daim Zainuddin, the architect of Malaysia's capital
controls, might leave the post, raising questions about the
continuity of economic policy.

Political analysts had speculated that Trade Minister Rafidah
Aziz or Mahathir's former foe-turned-ally Razaleigh Hamzah were
vying for Daim's job.

But most believed the finance minister would stay on.

"I think Tun Daim will stay where he is," said Abdul Razak
Baginda, head of the Malaysian Strategic Research Center think
tank. "The question is where is the PM going to fit Razaleigh.

He's the interesting character -- the kind of X-factor."
Razaleigh, who led a failed rebellion against Mahathir in the
late 1980s, is now considered a possible successor to the
73-year-old leader.

There was speculation that Razaleigh might be made education
minister, a post previously held by Najib Tun Razak, son of
Malaysia's second prime minister. Najib, who just survived the
election, could be moved to the Foreign Ministry.

While UMNO was expected to remain dominant in the cabinet, an
opposition party said it wanted more ethnic Chinese, arguing that
this group had rescued UMNO in the polls.

The outgoing 59-member cabinet had five ministers and seven
deputy ministers who were Chinese.

Meantime, an opposition party alleged on Thursday it had
collected evidence of "massive cheating nationwide" in Malaysia's
elections last week.

"We are compiling the evidence and will soon be filing
election petitions," said Marina Yusoff, who heads an election
supervisory committee for the National Justice Party.

Marina alleged the Nov. 29 poll, which returned the National
Front coalition to power with more than a two-thirds majority,
was not free and fair.

In a statement, she urged the Election Commission to
investigate irregularities and "when proven correct" to declare
the elections null and void, and call for fresh polls.

Alternatively a royal commission of inquiry should be convened
immediately, Marina said.