Malaysia's ruling coalition wins landslide victory

Mahathir's 14-party National Front retained its two-thirds majority in the 193-seat Parliament with a campaign that focused on economic and civil stability. The strong showing announced today assured Mahathir of a fifth consecutive term.

The Alternative Front opposition coalition had hoped to hold the National Front to fewer than two-thirds of the seats to prove Malaysians yearn for democratic freedoms and government transparency.

The opposition did win a crucial victory when the wife of Mahathir's imprisoned former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, trounced a former Cabinet minister in the race for the rural northern seat that Anwar held for 16 years before being sacked and convicted of corruption.

AP PHOTO Azizah Ismail, leader of the oppostion National Justice Party, waves to her supporters after she won the first parlimentary seat for her new party in Permatang Pauh in the Malasyian state of Penang yesterday evening.

"This is a victory of the people. It shows that people dared to choose change," Azizah Ismail told her supporters late yesterday.

Anwar is serving a six-year sentence for corruption and is on trial for sodomy. Since being jailed and beaten, the 52-year-old Islamic scholar had become the opposition's leading symbol for change.

The final tally for yesterday's vote in Parliament and 11 state assemblies was not expected until later in the day.

Mahathir could see his landslide victory as vindication of his risky actions in the past year, from the firing of the popular Anwar to his controversial economic policies that brought sneers from Western financial gurus, yet brought the country out of recession.

Mahathir proclaimed his victory early today to thousands of cheering members of his United Malays National Organization.

"The people have given us more than a two-thirds majority. That's clear proof that they still want us to lead the country," he said. "We will ensure that the country remains free, remains united and remains successful."

The new government was expected to be formed later today, with the Malaysian king reinstating Mahathir as prime minister in a formal ceremony.

The Alternative Front had hoped to win at least 65 seats, but with 191 of the 193 seats decided, they had won only 40 seats. In the previous Parliament, the opposition held only 23 seats and the ruling coalition controlled 166 seats.

The National Front won 148 of the seats and a small opposition party won the remaining three.

The country's Election Commission said that voting Monday proceeded calmly and turnout was between 60 percent and 70 percent.

The opposition had believed most Malaysians were ready to join the wave of demands for greater democracy that hit Southeast Asia in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis. Indonesian President Suharto was forced to give up his 32-year reign last May after riots shook Jakarta. Thailand earlier this year adopted a new constitution designed to reduce corruption and to make government more transparent.

But Mahathir repeatedly reminded Malaysia's 22 million people how much they have benefited from his rule as the economy grew by 8 percent each year for a decade until the Asian financial crisis. The average annual income has risen from $300 in 1957, when Malaysia won independence from Britain, to $3,800 this year.

He warned Muslim Malays that they could forfeit special privileges and cautioned the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities that they could lose their religious and cultural freedoms if the opposition were to win.

Mahathir is also riding high on the rebounding economy, which fell into deep recession last year, then came back to post 8.1 percent growth this quarter.

Mahathir, a maverick who has repeatedly ignored international opinion and pressure, chided those who said his unorthodox economic policies would fail: "We have achieved whatever we have achieved according to the Sinatra principle. We have done it our own way."

The opposition was up against the machinery of Mahathir's United Malays National Organization, the leading component of the National Front with 2.7 million members. The pro-government newspapers and television stations denied most requests by the opposition for ad space and gave them little coverage.

The opposition also insisted the election was rigged because 680,000 newly registered voters, many of them younger Malaysians weary of the status quo, were not allowed to cast ballots. The Election Commission claimed they could not get the paperwork done in time to get their names on the registration rolls.

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