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SINGAPORE: Malaysia's next general elections will be held before April 2008.
That's the prediction of opposition leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
If that happens, he said it'll be the earliest they're being called, in fact one-and-a-half years before the ruling government's term ends.
And he added if elections are free and fair, the opposition would perform impressively.
It was a meeting of old friends for Mr Anwar who was in Singapore to address the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Regional Outlook Forum and the upcoming Malaysian elections was a hot question at the media conference.
Mr Anwar believes there are two reasons why the government would call for elections before April.
One - the decision not to raise petroleum prices and highway tolls and the other - to disallow him from contesting.
Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysian Opposition Leader of Keadilan, said: "From the discussions within UMNO and the Barisan Nasional, clearly this happens to be one of the major issues that has been debated, whether they should have it to allow Anwar to contest or not and the consensus was not to allow Anwar to contest."
“Barring any other reason there are enough problems affecting the Malay population, the sex scandals, Chinese sentiments and the Hindu action, there are other problems. Right now, that's one of the major considerations of the government,” he added.
In his reply to academics, who asked him if he still has the ambition to become Malaysia's Prime Minister and whether he would ever rejoin the ruling party UMNO, he said: "UMNO to me is an obsolete party. It continues to harp on issues of the past, Malay supremacy, new economic policy despite the fact that we have lost our competitiveness.”
He continued: “I am supporting Keadilan as a party. Whether I will make it to become prime minister will be seen in the forthcoming elections and future elections hopefully."
Mr Anwar and his Keadilan Party are already going full swing into election preparations.
He's visiting Penang on Wednesday, where he'll announce his party's arrangements with the Chinese opposition DAP Party to contest the Northern State. -CNA/vm
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