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Malaysia goes to the polls today

SINGAPORE: As the two-week campaigning for Malaysia’s 12th general election ended at the stroke of midnight on Friday, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi remained confident of staying on at the helm after the snap poll on Saturday.

The Opposition parties were also equally optimistic of denying the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN), a two-thirds majority, at the least, and making significant gains, at the most.

Neither of the two main Opposition parties – the Democratic Action Party and the Parti Keadilan Rakyat – predicted a landslide against the long-governing BN, which too did not talk of a clean sweep of the poll.

Mr. Abdullah’s government had a tally of 199 out of the 219 seats in the dissolved Parliament. The new House will have 222 members; and the electorate is now of the order of 10.9 million.

And, as the peaceful campaigning ended, the focus shifted to the unusually large “silent voters,” who refused to divulge their preferences in informal opinion surveys.

The BN is an unchanging multiracial coalition of independent parties, each of which represents either the majority Malay-Muslims or the largest minority of ethnic Chinese or the people of Indian origin, who now constitute two million and about 8 per cent of the population.

The Opposition parties, not formally arrayed as an alternative coalition, have struck, nonetheless, an understanding on avoiding contests among themselves and sharing power in the event of such a possibility.

The Saturday election marks the first test of popular will after Malaysia was rocked by recent demonstrations by large sections of ethnic Indians for a “fair deal” and “equal rights.”

The people of Indian origin do not command majority in any parliamentary or state constituency, and their new “activism” is not the only unusual issue at stake, say political observers.

The demand for “free and fair elections” has remained a dominant campaign theme on the Opposition circuit.

As a result, when the Election Commission cancelled its plan to prevent bogus voting by using indelible ink for the first time since Malaysia’s independence in 1957, Anwar Ibrahim, a former Deputy Prime Minister and a one-time incarcerated leader, criticised the decision. He portrayed this U-turn as an event that should turn Saturday’s electoral exercise into a wake-up poll, as it were.

Mr. Anwar, still disqualified for any elective office because of his conviction in a corrupt practices case, is now the main Opposition leader.

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