Malaysia's modernist multi-religious ruling coalition headed for victory in elections yesterday, but Islamic fundamentalists predicted big gains in a struggle for the votes of the Muslim majority.
With ethnic Chinese and Indian voters holding the balance of power, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's National Front expects to win big nationally but fears a slide towards the Islamists could rattle foreign investors.
The first parliamentary result, in the new administrative capital of Putrajaya south of Kuala Lumpur, went to the ruling National Front by a landslide - -- an expected outcome in a new constituency populated by civil servants.
Abdullah, himself an Islamic scholar, campaigned hard in the rural Muslim heartland in the north, desperate to woo voters away from the fundamentalist opposition to what he calls "modern and progressive" Islamic rule.
Malaysia was transformed over the past two decades under former premier Mahathir Mohamad from a rubber and tin exporter to one of the world's top 20 trading nations with a high-tech manufacturing base.
But the divide between the urban rich and the rural poor is sharp, with some voters making their way to the polls on foot through jungle tracks as others cruise a spaghetti of six-lane highways in the capital of Kuala Lumpur.
While the opposition Islamic Party (PAS) has promised heaven as a reward for its supporters and castigates the government as corrupt, Abdullah has offered Islamic rule which stresses science as much as religion and protects the rights of non-believers.
After voting in his home state of Penang Sunday, Abdullah predicted the National Front would reverse the losses it suffered at the hands of the Islamic hardliners in the last elections in 1999. The outlook was "very good, as good as it can be," he said.
He forecast a bigger majority in parliament than the two-thirds the front already holds and suggested the ruling party would recapture the state of Terengganu, which PAS wrested from it four years ago.
PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang, 56, however, was confident of a further swing towards PAS nationally and predicted the party would win control of a third state.
He told reporters after voting in Marang in northwestern Terengganu, that PAS would retain the states of Terrenganu and Kelantan and take neighboring Kedah, giving it control of three out of Malaysia's 13 states.
The loss of Kedah would be a major blow to the National Front and could precipitate a rebellion against Abdullah from within his own faction-ridden party, still unnerved by Mahathir's departure.
"The mood is good," Abdul Hadi told reporters after voting. "God willing we will win two thirds majority in Terengganu. Overall we will see an increase of parliament seats. We can get Kedah."
Although Abdullah has painted the election as a contest between "progressive" Islam and backward conservatism, government corruption is also a major issue.
Acknowledging this, the prime minister has made the fight against graft and cronyism a central plank of his administration as it rides a resurgent economy and pledges development for all.
Abdullah also has on his side the fact that anger over one of the major issues in the last election -- the sacking and jailing of popular former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim - -- has faded.
In the 1999 poll, the government's share of the Muslim vote slipped from 63 percent to 49 percent, with some of the support going to the new National Justice Party led by Anwar's wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, which took five parliamentary seats in an alliance with PAS.
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