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No pressure to quit: Badawi

SINGAPORE: Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Sunday braced himself for another term at the helm, though without the two-thirds parliamentary majority he had sought.

He said he was “not under pressure at this time” from any quarter within the ruling Barisan Nasional (B.N.) coalition to quit over what critics see as its poor showing in this general election. For the first time in nearly four decades, the B.N. lost the two-thirds majority required to enact constitutional amendments with ease.

The B.N. is a long-time coalition of race-based parties, each of which represents either the Malay-Muslim majority or the large ethnic Chinese minority or the smaller minority of Indian-origin people. The multiracial Opposition, in contrast, consists of a cluster of parties not based on race; and, Mr. Anwar spearheaded the campaign this time.

Exuding a sense of triumph, Mr. Anwar said in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday the poll results heralded “a new dawn” in Malaysia’s politics. And, this “defining moment” for taking the country towards a shared multiracial future and away from race-based politics, was “unprecedented” in the country’s history, he emphasised.

Meanwhile, D. Jeyakumar, who trounced long-time Minister and Malaysian Indian Congress leader Samy Vellu in Saturday’s snap general election, told The Hindu over the telephone on Sunday that “a confluence of factors” should explain the result.

A physician by profession and a life-long socialist in politics, Dr. Jeyakumar said he would attribute his victory primarily to the “people power” phenomenon, now on the rise in Malaysia. Rather than seeing himself as a giant-killer in politics, he would cite other factors like the new agenda of the united Opposition, and the popular perceptions about “corruption cronyism and nepotism” in the ruling circles.

He was glad that the religion-based Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, a key player on the Opposition circuit, “endorsed” his candidature despite his “socialist politics.” Dr. Jeyakumar’s original political base, Parti Socialis Malaysia, was never recognised by the authorities, and so he chose to stand on the ticket of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, whose patron is Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister and a one-time incarcerated leader.

The Sungai Siput parliamentary constituency, one of the few with a relatively larger proportion of Indian-origin people, has an ethnic Chinese majority, at 42 per cent. While Malays account for 32 per cent and ethnic Indians 22 per cent, the other communities four per cent.

As the parties counted their gains and losses, it emerged that the non-registered Hindu Rights Action Force, in the forefront of recent protest against the “marginalisation” of ethnic Indians, won all three seats it contested on the ticket of one Opposition party or the other.

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