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Abdullah Ahmad Badawi may have scored a thumping victory in 2004, fresh from taking on the mantle of leader of UMNO, the key party in the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.
However the image of "Mr Clean" and overall nice guy even after four years in office isn't going to be enough in 2008.
The timing of the General Election may have been an attempt to keep down the Opposition challenge, but what could cause some BN seats to undergo a disappearing act would be race.
Although ethnicity has been kept much on the back-boiler despite the Chinese and Bumiputera issue often cited as a source of criticism and contention, few had expected the backlash to come, as it has in recent months, from the Indian community.
For the first time, ethnic Indians have become a political force, starting with a mass rally in November 2007 that led to the indefinite detention of five activists under internal security laws.
In the latest protests on February 16th, Malaysian police had to fire teargas and water cannons to disperse protestors who defied a ban and tried to gather in Independence Square in downtown Kuala Lumpur to protest.
"For the first time the Indians are prepared for change" said Lim Kit Siang from the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party (DAP), who leads the opposition in parliament. "For the past 50 years they (the Indian community) were a vote-bank for the government," Lim pointed, "so the change will undoubtedly impact the elections."
Lim says he sees chinks in the armour of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which leads the BN coalition. "I think there is a glimmer of hope that we can try to break the UMNO political hegemony and deny the Barisan Nasional its parliamentary two-thirds majority which has always been the unreachable holy grail in Malaysian politics," he told AFP.
Poster-boy for the Opposition, sacked former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim also believes the time is ripe for the Opposition to make inroads. "The elections will be defining in the sense it will shake the very foundations of this government," he told AFP.
Khoo Kay Peng from the think-tank Sedar Institute tips the Opposition to win just 5-10 new seats. The problem is, the wins could be mis-read.
"The election results could project a very polarised Malaysia because the Malay communities are dissatisfied. Some of them will vote against the government and that swing will be interpreted as anti-Malay sentiment towards a Malay-led government," he said.
Although BN, with UMNO in the coaltion, can count on vote of the Malays, who make up 60 percent of the population, the vote is likely to be fractured.
As in the last elections, the Opposition is counting on winning over younger Malay voters especially with fiery crowd-puller, Anwar Ibrahim leading the way with the Keadilan party.
While the cosmopolitans Malays gravitate towards Keadilan, the conservatives may look to parties such as PAS, the Islamic opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party.
Whether PAS can keep and even grow its influence in the northern states of Kelantan and Terrenganu remains to be seen.
PAS retained control of Kelantan in the 2004 elections but lost Terrenganu as voters looked to better economic conditions for the rural region.
However, the gains of the BN at the last eleections could be reversed with the economy set to be another sore point among voters.
The polls were called early due partly to the economic outlook which political analysts say is unlikely to improve.
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