KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysia's ruling coalition won parliamentary elections in a landslide and kept its grip on power, but the opposition has changed the face of the country's politics by nearly doubling its seats and seizing two northern states.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's ruling National Front coalition was crowing Tuesday over retaining its two-thirds majority in Parliament, a margin needed to amend the constitution and seen as a mandate for another five years under Mahathir's rule. The 14-party National Front took 148 of the 193 seats in Parliament.Yet Mahathir's own party -- the United Malays National Organization, which is a member of Mahathir's 14-member coalition -- awoke to signs of trouble Tuesday. Many voters in the rural Malay heartland defected Monday to the opposition's orthodox Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party. Also, initial estimates indicated the popular vote for the National Front had dropped since the last election in 1995, and the opposition ballooned from 23 to 42 seats in the new Parliament.
One of the new opposition Parliament members will be Azizah Ismail, the wife of ousted Mahathir deputy Anwar Ibrahim.
Mahathir sacked Anwar last year, and Anwar was subsequently arrested, beaten and sentenced to six years for corruption. The ouster outraged many members of Mahathir's party, who took to the streets in unprecedented anti-government rallies and then pledged their allegiance to the opposition.
Anwar lost his Parliament seat upon his conviction. But Azizah won it in his stead and has vowed to carry on his political legacy.
The 47-year-old former ophthalmologist and mother of six has no political experience, but her soft-spoken perseverance was expected to make her a prominent new member of Parliament.
The country's Muslim Malays, who make up 60 percent of the 22 million people in this Southeast Asian nation, have always been the backbone of Mahathir's party since its founding a decade before the end of British rule in 1957. But spurred on partly by the Anwar affair, thousands crossed over to the opposition Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party in Monday's vote.
The Islamic fundamentalist party retained the northern state of Kelantan, which it has controlled since 1990, and also won neighboring Terengganu. It is the first time the party has controlled more than one state.
Abdul Razak Baginda, executive director of the Malaysian Strategic Research Center, called the election a big win for Mahathir's coalition but a serious defeat for his party.
"UMNO used to be the linchpin, the dominant party within the coalition," he said. "Now UMNO has been considerably weakened."
The Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party is now the opposition's strongest party in Parliament. It has been criticized by Mahathir as being composed of outdated religious leaders who could undo Malaysia's economic gains of the last decade. The party has often said it would introduce Islamic law if it won a majority in the national Parliament.
Mahathir also lost four UMNO Cabinet ministers on Monday. Because of that, he could be faced with a succession battle for party leadership.
The 73-year-old Mahathir, prime minister for 18 years and Asia's longest-serving leader, has said he would retire this year. But he fired Anwar, his hand-picked successor. And the other top contenders for the job didn't gain support Monday.
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi retained his Parliament seat, but with 6,000 fewer votes. UMNO vice president and education minister, Najib Tun Razak, squeaked by with only 200 more votes than his opponent.
"In the short-term, his victory means stability, but the question of his successor has now been put off rather than solved," said Bruce Gale of the Singapore-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy.Despite ruling coalition landslide, opposition makes inroads