IDEA, Incredible? #6: Early general election

Pak Lah dah cakap dan Utusan dah lapor hari ini. PM kata "bila-bila masa" je.

Agensi berita antarabangsa Reuters juga laporkan kekalahan Anwar le. Mungkinkah Anwar dah habis? Sedih la macam tu.

30.04.2007 (Reuters) - The Malaysian government celebrated on Monday a symbolic defeat over its most feared political opponent in a weekend by-election, hardening expectations of an early general election.

The government struck a triumphant note after Saturday's election, which dealt a blow to Anwar Ibrahim's opposition party and gave the ruling coalition a morale boost as it geared up for a general election expected late this year or early 2008.

"Democracy is still alive and fresh," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, who led the coalition by-election campaign, told reporters with obvious satisfaction on Monday.

The by-election in Ijok, a semi-rural seat outside the capital, was a proxy battle between Najib and Anwar: both widely thought to have burning ambitions to lead the country.

The government pledged at least $10 million in spending in the tiny seat, whose 12,000 voters witnessed a campaign that was out of all proportion to the actual prize -- a seat in a state assembly where the big issues include local bus services.

Najib and Anwar campaigned on behalf of rival candidates, trading allegations of corruption.

At one point, thousands of their supporters clashed in the run-up to the vote, hurling bottles and rocks at each other before riot police stepped in.

On Saturday, though, the coalition emerged triumphant, holding onto the seat and seeing off Anwar's Keadilan party with 58.6 percent of the vote, up from 57 percent previously.

For Anwar, the result was a blow to his efforts to revive his political career and the spirit of his decade-old "Reformasi" campaign, which rocked Malaysian politics to its foundations in the late 1990s, political experts said.

'BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD'

"The opposition has to go back to the drawing board and analyse the implications," said another opposition leader, Lim Kit Siang, whose Democratic Action Party holds most opposition seats in federal parliament and backed Anwar's campaign in Ijok.

"It's a blow for him but it doesn't mean that it's a knockout. It will be a fatal error for anybody to conclude that it will be a walkover for Barisan Nasional in the next round and that it will be the end of Anwar," Lim added.

Asked if the Ijok result made an early general election more likely, he said: "It will be sooner rather than later."

Most political experts expect an election early next year, though one is not due until 2009.In jail for most of the last decade, Anwar is banned from standing for parliament until April 2008 because of his criminal record. He was jailed for six years until 2004 for corruption and sodomy, charges he says were concocted to kill off his career.

Police first arrested Anwar under internal-security laws in 1998 after he split from then premier Mahathir Mohamad and led an anti-government street protest in the capital, demanding reform.

When he was finally freed and his sodomy conviction quashed, politics seemed to have passed him by. Mahathir had handed power to his deputy, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who had gone on to score a landslide election victory for the coalition by promising to clean up corruption -- part of Anwar's own "Reformasi" agenda.

Anwar was not immediately available for comment on Monday but he had complained that his Keadilan, or Justice, party never stood an even chance in the by-election. He accused the coalition of both intimidating and bribing voters, a charge it denied.

In the end, said political analyst Chandra Muzaffar, Ijok voters backed the stability and development agenda that Barisan Nasional has used for decades to hold onto national power.

And they ignored Anwar's smears against Najib, he added."That goes to show yet again that when it comes to issues like development and stability and so on, the ruling coalition has always had an edge over the opposition," Muzaffar said.

Barisan is a multi-racial coalition comprising parties that represent Malaysia's three major ethnic groups, Malay, Chinese and Indian. Opposition parties are still split along racial and religious lines, despite Anwar's attempts to unify them.

EARLY ELECTIONS? What an idea! Incredible! Or an incredible idea?