Anwar says more than one in three votes will go to opposition
By Lynlee Foo, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 05 March 2008 1943 hrs

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SINGAPORE: Malaysian former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim is convinced that the opposition can deny the ruling Barisan Nasional a two-thirds majority in the March 8 election.

He also said only "massive election fraud" would allow the ruling coalition to retain its overwhelming majority.

Mr Anwar, who is also the advisor to opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), said so at an event in Singapore.

He claimed to have data from surveys and intelligence sources which show that the pact made by his party PKR, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) has worked.

Mr Anwar is confident that the opposition parties, also known as Barisan Alternatif, will occupy one in three seats in Parliament after the polling day.

The three parties had pulled their resources together and agreed to field only one opposition candidate in each constituency to prevent a three-cornered contest, which would then reduce the opposition's chances of gaining ground.

Mr Anwar claimed, going by the hard facts he has so far, the strategy has apparently proven successful.

"We have gone beyond (securing) 75 (parliamentary seats), I will safely say that we have now achieved our first line of strategy of denying the UMNO-led of the two-thirds majority. I said from the polls, both independent and party polls, and the info I gather from our ruling party," he said.

Among the issues Mr Anwar has used against the ruling government is the sky-rocketing fuel price.

"PM Abdullah (Badawi) compared prices with that of Singapore. Singapore is a net importing country, ours is a net exporting country. The closest is Brunei, which is lower than ours; or (fuel prices of) all exporting countries are lower than (that of) Malaysia," he said.

"Number two - Singapore's per capita income is five times more than Malaysia's. How do you compare prices and not income? That's why for eight years I kept the price at 1 ringgit 10 sens. (It) didn't change," he added.

But several ministers have put in perspective what exactly Mr Anwar had achieved while he was in office.

Penang's Chief Minister Dr Koh Tsu Koon said: "The Malaysian government under Barisan Nasional must be given the credit that we are managing very well, when... crude oil price of the world market, of which we have no control and even the US has no absolute control (over), has increased by 7.7 times in this ten-year period, since Anwar Ibrahim stopped being the finance minister."

Other ministers have also pointed out that several of Mr Anwar's unpopular policies, while he was in government, had to be changed eventually.

Mr Anwar was in Singapore for a finance conference where he was one of the several speakers discussing global risk management. - CNA/ac