| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Southeast Asia | |
| Malaysia: Islamic party fields non-Muslim candidate | |
| 2008-02-24 | |
| (AKI) – Malaysia’s conservative Islamic party, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), has broken a 61 year old taboo and fielded a non-Muslim as one of its candidates. Kumutha Raman, a 29-year old law graduate, was presented to local media on Thursday. She will contest the Tiram state seat under the banner of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat, a coalition between PAS and the People's Justice Party (PKR), formed to challenge the ruling Barisan Nasional. Barisan Nasional is the government coalition controlled by prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). PAS’s election choice is the latest in a series of overtures aimed at attracting non-Muslim votes at the election scheduled for 8 March. Known for its strict Islamic policies, PAS has recently dropped its call to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state and is instead campaigning for better quality of life and racial equality. Its manifesto calls for the national oil and gas company Petronas to be placed under parliamentary control, lower prices of fuel and food, and free education up to university level and free healthcare.
At the previous election, held in 2004, the hard-line PAS called for the creation of an Islamic state and proposed harsh laws such as amputating the limbs of thieves and stoning adulterers to death. Its radical Islamic stance scared some members of the Muslim community and the party suffered badly, losing control of Terengganu state and only retaining control of Kelantan with a very slim majority. At a national level, PAS won only seven parliamentary seats, which represented a significant decrease from the 27 parliamentary seats it had won in the 1999 general election. It plans to contest 65 of the 222 seats in the forthcoming ballot. Almost 11 million of MalaysiaÂ’s 27 million people are eligible to vote. Voting is not mandatory, and recent voter turnouts have typically ranged between 70 and 75 percent. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Racial equality in Malaysia means the Malays get welfare/social security money so they can have a lifestyle equal to that of the hard-working Indians and Chinese. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-02-24 19:11 |