Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi launched his election manifesto yesterday, while his ruling coalition ran advertisements that read "Only One Choice: National Front." The irony wasn't lost on opposition parties, which don't enjoy the electoral advantages afforded to Mr. Abdullah's supporters. Even so, next month's parliamentary ballot will be an important referendum on the Prime Minister and his government.
Political change comes slowly in Malaysia, still a young democracy with an evolving middle class.
The National Front has a virtual choke hold on state-run media, and full coffers for pre-election campaign spending. Of the 222 parliamentary constituencies and 505 state legislature seats up for grabs on March 8, opposition parties are expected to seriously contest only one state: Kelantan, currently ruled by the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, or PAS.
But even Mr. Abdullah admits that his coalition will likely lose some ground, if not the two-thirds parliamentary majority it currently enjoys on a national level. That's partly because the last time voters went to the polls, in 2004, Malaysia's economy was on an upswing, thanks to the U.S. Federal Reserve-stimulated flood of capital that flowed to Asia. Not so now: While inflation remains relatively contained, growth is slowing and food and energy prices are rising. Although that isn't entirely Mr. Abdullah's fault, faster economic liberalization earlier in his first term would have helped.
Mr. Abdullah also has backtracked from the timid political reforms he tried when first elected, such as allowing more public dissent in the streets and in Malaysia's media. That has rankled the country's ethnic minorities, who have protested in force in recent months to demand more attention to official corruption and a rethinking of affirmative-action policies that benefit the Malay majority. Mr. Abdullah didn't boost his popularity by cracking down hard on the public protests and imprisoning a clutch of protest leaders under the country's Internal Security Act, a colonial-era law that allows for detention without trial.
These moves have breathed new light into Malaysia's loosely organized opposition, informally led by former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of the National Justice Party. It's an unlikely resurrection on both counts. Mr. Anwar isn't eligible to run for office again until April, and the opposition parties don't have much in common. The secular Democratic Action Party, for instance, rubs uneasily with the Islamist PAS, even though the PAS is reinventing itself as a more moderate, Shariah-lite party to woo moderate Malays.
Yet as in 1999, when Mr. Anwar led the reformasi, or reform movement, all opposition parties seem to sniff the National Front's weakness and are banding together for pragmatic ends. In an improvement from that earlier era, they are now running on ideas, not slogans. Today, Mr. Anwar is expected to release an election manifesto detailing, among other things, a pledge for capital-account liberalization, friendlier foreign investment regimes, cleaner and more predictable governance and an end to price controls and racial quotas.
That's an appealing message to Malaysia's entrepreneurs, who grow in number with every passing year. It's also a message that will appeal to ethnic minorities, who want equality of opportunity in schools and in business. As globalization moves on, Mr. Abdullah's message of handouts and affirmative action will start to look tired -- and perhaps it already has. We'll know, come March.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120396610081191079.html?mod=opinion_main_europe_asia
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