09Feb2001 MALAYSIA: ANALYSIS-
Source: REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

http://www.reuters.com

Malaysia's Malay talks a tussle for core support.

By Patrick Chalmers

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Malaysia's main Malay-based parties are inching towards wide-ranging talks as they indulge in preliminary sparring for control of their shared political heartland ahead of a general election in 2004. Some political analysts see the talks, which follow a rise in support for the main Muslim opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), as a question of survival for Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).

But however they turn out, the talks, which look on course following a technical meeting of party officials on Thursday, are likely to highlight the multi-racial country's most sensitive issues.

Mahathir's party set the ball rolling by inviting other Malay parties to discuss unity issues within Malaysia's majority ethnic group.

"Within this next year, they (UMNO) will start losing quite a lot of ground among the non-Malays," Shamsul Akmar Musakamal of the New Straits Times newspaper, a rare outspoken columnist, predicted.

In looking to the next general election, UMNO's first goal will be to rebuild support among Malays, a tactic involving calls for Malay unity that could frighten ethnic Chinese and Indian voters away from its ruling alliance.

But for Shamsul, risky as the tactic may be, UMNO has little alternative. "For them to survive, they have to secure their own power base, which has always been among the Malays," he said.

Malays account for 55 percent of the country's 22 million population, with Chinese and Indians making up some 30 percent and 10 percent respectively.

PAS has accepted the idea of talks but, sensing a chance to grab more support from Malays irked by the government's record on the economy, big business and the judiciary, it is keen to switch the agenda to what it calls broader issues of national unity.

One Western diplomat suggested that the talks, tipped to bring in party leaders at a later stage, will not amount to much.

With PAS on the up, the diplomat saw the exercise as a no-lose situation for Malaysia's more fervent Islamic party.

"It does PAS no harm to accept. They can say yes, allow talks to go on for months and quietly let them run into the sand."

"AWESOME" CHALLENGE FACES UMNO

Few deny UMNO comes to the talks on the back foot. Even party cadres admit to troubled times for an organisation grown used to power since independence from Britain in 1957.

"UMNO is going through a very difficult period," said Zulkifli Mohd Alwi, assistant secretary of UMNO Youth Malaysia.

"The challenges that we face politically speaking are rather awesome but having said so, it must be seen as a strength of UMNO rather than otherwise that we are prepared to talk to PAS."

Mahathir's dismissal in 1998 of his ambitious deputy Anwar Ibrahim, and the former finance minister's subsequent jailing for 15 years for graft and s###my offences he says were trumped up, shocked and divided naturally conservative Malays.

It also alarmed many in Malaysia's legal community, raising serious questions about judicial independence, one of the issues PAS says threatens national unity.

Mahathir is now in his 20th year at the top. Another problem dogging his government is a debate about questionable business deals and state interventions affecting Malay-dominated flagships such as construction firm United Engineers, car maker Proton and Malaysian Airline System.

PAS's insistence on tackling these issues, and others party Secretary General Nasharudin Mat Isa says include freedom of speech, freedom of the press and Islamic questions facing Malays, goes to the heart of UMNO's problems.

"From our perspective, the reason they have called us is because UMNO is in a very desperate situation at the moment. They created this issue of disunity among the Malays," he said.

"For us there's no such thing as disunity among Malays, there is a shift in support towards the (opposition grouping of parties) Barisan Alternatif," Nasharudin added.

Fallout from Mahathir's ouster of Anwar helped PAS win control in two of Malaysia's 13 states in 1999 general elections.

Shamsul said PAS had played an astute hand since then.

"It's been able to shed some of its more extremist image since the last general election. Much of this has been because of its preparedness to work with other political parties.

"Given that UMNO is struggling to hold Malays' support many of the Malays, though they may not have been comfortable with PAS originally, are looking at it as an alternative now."

PAS's challenge will be to keep disgruntled Malays on board its alliance with the pro-Anwar Parti Keadilan Nasional and others, while soothing more general voter unease about its strict Islamic codes.

Nasharudin said any extension of Islamic teaching into law, which could include the stoning to death of adulterers or the amputation of a thief's hand, would apply only to Muslims.

"The Chinese are very concerned with their businesses, very concerned with their lifestyle, their culture, their language. As far as PAS is concerned, their lifestyles, their language, their religion will not be disturbed," he said.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.