Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak Dissolves Parliament for General Elections To Take Place

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia dissolved his Parliament to pave the way for the country’s general elections, slated to be around the latter part of April. The Prime Minister made the announcement via a national address on television. He said that the King had approved his request to have the parliament dissolved on April 3, 2013.

Prime Minister Razak is a member of the ruling party, the National Front, which had been the ruling party in Malaysia for 57 years. Its five-year mandate ends on April 30 therefore the PM is obliged constitutionally to call for general elections within April.

Loss of majority votes

While the National Front or BN has been in power for more than 50 years, it had lost two-thirds of majority votes in the elections held in 2008. This was the first time that the ruling party suffered this kind of setback. Meetings of election officials are expected to be held within the next few days to have the date of the general elections settled.

Competition

Expected to give Prime Minister Razak stiff competition in the polls is Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the opposition party. The opposition is a tri-party coalition composed of the Democratic Action Party, the Islamist Parti Agama Se-Malaysia and Ibrahim’s own party, Parti Keadilan Rakyat.

At state

Control of 12 Malaysian states and 222 parliament seats are at stake in the elections. Several states are in the control of the opposition party at the moment. The opposition has accused the ruling party of racial discrimination and corruption and has gained the support of some urban areas. On the other hand the BN had increased their efforts to get back their supporters by pouring more funds designed to help the poor and by removing some repressive security laws.

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was once a National Front party member but had a falling out in 1998 with Mahathir Mohamad, the former Prime Minister. He was charged with sodomy twice and was sent to jail for six years for abuse of power. The charges had been overturned later and Mr. Ibrahim said those were politically-motivated charges.

Analysts say that it is unlikely to wrestle the power from the ruling party although the opposition still has the chance to win more seats. The ruling party still has the support of the majority, most of which are in the rural areas.