Malaysia opposition fires lawmaker in 'Allah' spat

The move follows weeks of turmoil in opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's three-party alliance, which is battling concerns that nearly a dozen opposition legislators might switch sides and enable the ruling coalition to regain the two-thirds parliamentary majority it lost in 2008 elections. The alliance has lost four members of Parliament in less than a month.

Anwar's People's Justice Party announced late Saturday it was kicking out Zulkifli Noordin, a lawmaker who has repeatedly clashed with other opposition officials and recently filed a police complaint against his own colleague for stating that non-Muslims can use the word “Allah” as a translation for “God.”

Religious tensions rose in January after the High Court struck down a government ban on the non-Muslim use of the word, angering many among the ethnic Malay Muslim majority.

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