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Anwar challenges 'stolen' election
Sydney Morning Herald - May 6, 2013
"We won the elections," he said. "The Election Commission is complicit in the crime of stealing the election from Malaysians. The government has lost its legitimacy."
The announcement came as protests against the result went viral on the internet and prime minister Najib Razak blamed a swing against his government on what he called a dangerous "Chinese tsunami".
"The polarisation in this voting trend worries the government," Mr Najib said. "We are afraid that if this is allowed to continue, it will create tensions."
He was speaking after his government extended its half-century rule, despite its worst performance in a general election. He also dismissed claims that the vote was rigged, hitting back at the opposition for "stirring up hatred, anger and racial issues".
He welcomed a court challenge. "We have a very transparent system whereby we can refer to the courts," he said. "But in the interest of the country, we hope all parties, especially the opposition, will accept the results with an open heart and allow our democratic process to run smoothly."
Mr Najib emerged victorious with a simple majority after the most gruelling election in his country's history that left his opposition rivals claiming widespread fraud influenced the result.
Ethnic Chinese, who make up a quarter of Malaysia's population, deserted Mr Najib's Barisan Nasional coalition in droves, continuing a trend from the 2008 elections.
They turned to the opposition, attracted by its pledge to tackle corruption and end race-based policies favouring the majority Malays in business, education and housing.
Voters swung from Barisan's race-based policies in the cities, with the ruling coalition winning about 60 per cent of seats with less than half the popular vote. It lost by bigger margins in more seats than it won by big margins and tended to win in districts with smaller populations.
The government's core voters are rural Malay Muslims and rural indigenous people in Borneo, which translates into large numbers of seats because of the way district boundaries are drawn.
Barisan won 133 seats and the opposition 89 in the 222-seat parliament, short of its customary two thirds majority.
Enthusiasm for change was so great in urban areas, where 70 per cent of the population live that more than 90 per cent of registered voters turned out in some areas despite voting not being compulsory. Many of them were educated middle-class Malaysians.
The three-party Pakatan Rakyat opposition alliance maintained its momentum at the election, showing it can be a real challenge to one of the world's longest-ruling governments, despite infighting and diverse ideological views. Pakatan for the first time presented a credible alternative budget and vision for the country. As well as winning the cities the opposition made inroads into the government's traditional strongholds in Johor, Sabah and Sarawak.
But the result shattered opposition leaders, including former student firebrand Anwar Ibrahim who believed they had a good chance of winning after being swamped at huge rallies and a surge of support in the cities.
The opposition has accused the government of bringing "phantom" foreign voters to hotly contested seats, using indelible ink that washed off and blatant vote buying, violence and intimidation. ?
Opposition supporters are venting their anger. An internet petition (change.org) protesting electoral fraud has gone viral with people signing at a rate of 1100 a minute. Videos, pictures and first-hand accounts of purportedly foreign "voters" being confronted at polling centres has also gone viral online.
Mr Anwar, who said before the election he would quit politics if the opposition lost, said: "It is unfair for us to form a decision based primarily on an election that we consider fraudulent."
Mr Najib accused the opposition of stirring up hatred, anger and racial issues.
One of the first declared winners was 32-year-old Nurul Izzah Anwar, the daughter of Mr Anwar, who is seen as a potential future leader of the country.
She retained the Kuala Lumpur seat she won in 2008 despite a strong challenge from Raja Nong Chick Paintai Abidan, a senior minister and powerbroker in the United Malays National Organisation, the main ruling party.
Police dispersed an angry crowd of government supporters where the votes were counted.
The Chinese-backed Democratic Action Party had a landslide win in the northern state of Penang, securing more than three quarters of the vote.
In Kelantan, voters chose an opposition candidate over the Malay chauvinist Ibrahim Ali, head of the extremist Perkasa organisation who had the backing of former prime minister Mahthir Mohamad.
Mr Najib, a 59-year-old British-educated aristocrat who campaigned on a "stay the course" argument, now has a mandate to push through an ambitious $US444 billion economic program aimed at lifting Malaysia to the ranks of wealthier neighbour Singapore by 2020.
Shareholders of the Australian-owned Lynas rare earths processing facility in the eastern state of Pahang will breath a sign of relief over the result. Its stocks jumped 16 percent Monday.
Mr Anwar had said he would close the plant pending an inquiry into its safety if he won office.
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