More than 25,000 people attended the rally late on Thursday by the Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party (DAP) in the northern state of Penang, home to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi where the DAP hoped to make its biggest electoral inroad.

The organizers put the figure at about 50,000 people or more, as the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition faces a backlash by ethnic Chinese and Indians, who complain of religious and racial inequality in the mainly Muslim nation.

“The future looks promising but there are issues of phantom voters,” said de-facto opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who has galvanized the country’s divided opposition to form a loose alliance.

“We need to be given a strong majority so that the people’s voice can be truly heard,” he said after Friday prayers in the Penang constituency of Permatang Pauh. In the northeastern state of Kelantan, some 20,000 Muslim supporters of the Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) turned up at a soccer stadium in pre-dawn mass prayers to seek divine help in the election.

Barisan is waging an all-out war to end PAS’ 18-year-old rule of Kelantan and expand its influence in the country.

Both PAS and Barisan predicted a close finish in Kelantan, where PAS held just a razor-thin one-seat majority in the last state assembly.

“I am pleased there has been a clear increase in support not just in Kelantan but nationwide,” PAS spiritual leader and Kelantan chief minister Nik Aziz Nik Mat told Reuters.

Awang Adek Hussin, Barisan’s chief campaigner in Kelantan, was equally upbeat. “It’s going to be quite close,” he told Reuters. “At the end of it, we will win by a comfortable margin.”

The ruling coalition is considered certain to retain power although its majority will be reduced in the national parliament, analysts say.

The opposition, which wants to deny Barisan a two-thirds majority in parliament, the level needed to change the constitution, hopes to draw a protest vote over rising food and fuel costs, street crimes and an influx of cheap foreign labour.

Tens of thousands of people at the Penang rally shouted “Down, Down Barisan”.

Many of those who attended the rally wore red, the colour favoured by the DAP and overflowed onto the adjoining streets, blocking traffic, witnesses said. They sang a popular Chinese song, chanting “I will strive to go on.” “We will not submit to UMNO’s political domination,” DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng said, referring to Abdullah’s United Malays National Organization (UMNO).

“We make a pledge to move forward and make Penang dynamic again. We will not be dependent on the will of UMNO but dependent on the will of the people of Penang,” he said. Ordinary Chinese voters at the rally criticized Barisan, a 14-party coalition that has governed the country since independence from Britain in 1957.

“The Barisan Nasional politicians have been too arrogant, I think the power has gone to their head,” said Wong Yoke Meng, a sales executive in his early 30s, who came to the rally with his sister and father.

Abdullah, speaking to reporters in Penang on Thursday, warned the Chinese that a vote for the opposition could limit their say in national decision-making. “I don’t want to form a government that is made up of only one race,” he said.

Subscribe to The China Post and save.  Click hereSharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 800 characters max

Receive China Post promos

Respond to this email