Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Malaysians appeared to be ready for general elections -- in his clearest indication so far that early polls are near.
Speculation is mounting that Abdullah will call for national ballots by mid-March, even though his ruling coalition's five-year mandate only expires in the middle of next year.
Abdullah told CNN in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday that he was hoping for a "good mandate" to enable the government to implement public development programs.
"We will call for the election when I think everything is all right and at the moment I think people are ready for the election," Abdullah said in the interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. Excerpts were published by Malaysian media yesterday.
Abdullah had said in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week that his National Front coalition would probably not be able to repeat its huge electoral success in 2004, when it won 196 of the 219 parliamentary seats.
Among Abdullah's biggest electoral challenges are inflation, rising crime and tensions in the multiracial society sparked by frustrations among minority ethnic Indians, who feel they are not getting a fair share of the national wealth.
Separately yesterday, Othman Ali, a federal police official responsible for security, said police have "put in place all the necessary preparations and we are ready" for elections, the national news agency Bernama reported.
"We expect a smooth election," Bernama quoted Othman as telling reporters in eastern Malaysia. "I don't expect any rioting or disturbances in the coming election but if there are, we are prepared to face them either in terms of personnel or logistics."
Officials at federal police headquarters said they could not immediately comment.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS