Multi-racial Malaysia yesterday set a general election for March 21, with new Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi sure of victory but needing to recapture Muslim Malay votes from the Islamist opposition. Abdullah, 64, took over from veteran leader Mahathir Mohamad four months ago knowing he had to seek an early mandate to stamp his authority over the country and his own party.
"We want to ensure government to be formed as quickly as possible because it has a lot to do, ensure revival of economy and continue development," Election Commission chairman Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman said, announcing a voting day that coincides with the Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix race.
The Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is secure because of support from Malaysia's large Chinese and Indian minorities.
The United Malays National Organization (UMNO) that leads the alliance won less than half the Malay vote in the 1999 election after Mahathir's humiliation of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim -- the political heir Abdullah replaced.
The Islamists hope to sweep across the north this time to take Mahathir's home state of Kedah.
"Our target is to retain Kelantan and Terengganu and capture Kedah and if possible Selangor, Perlis and Pahang as well," Abdul Hadi Awang, the hardline preacher who leads Parti Islam se-Malaysia told journalists at his base in Terengganu.
Since taking office, Abdullah has sought to recover moral high ground from the Islamists with a strong stand for ethical governance and an anti-corruption campaign.
The honeymoon period was tarnished by a recent revelation that a firm owned by his son had links to a nuclear proliferation scandal involving Pakistan's top nuclear scientist.
Opposition parties accuse the government of whitewashing an investigation that found no wrongdoing on the part of the firm, which says it believed nuclear centrifuge parts it had manufactured were meant for the oil and gas industry.
The issue is bound to feature in campaigns starting after nominations on March 13.
Abdullah, son of a respected Muslim scholar, has a reputation for probity and is regarded as the "Mr. Clean" of UMNO.
Mahathir was vilified by Islamists as a cruel "pharaoh," due to his penchant for big projects and policies that favored select tycoons and because of his treatment of Anwar.
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