Malaysia unity debate stalls again

Police keep racial tension in check in the capital's outskirts

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysia's Islamic opposition party on Tuesday again ducked out of talks with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's ruling party, with no possible reset date in sight.

The talks aim to heal a growing rift within the country's majority Malay community.

The latest effort was part of a process initiated by Mahathir's United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) after talks collapsed in February.

Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), the conservative Islamic party which leads the opposition alliance, pulled out of top-level talks last month after presenting a set of pre-conditions and saying the timing was bad.

This time, PAS put off the meeting because one of its technical committee members was abroad.

"UMNO will wait for PAS to fix a new date for the meeting," Information Minister Khalil Yaakob said.

PAS President Fadzil Noor was non-committal on when that would be, telling state news agency Bernama: "I too have no idea how long the meeting would be postponed."

Division feared

Political analysts have painted the talks as an UMNO ploy to counter growing support for PAS.

The popularity of PAS has grown on Malay unhappiness over the humiliation of Mahathir's former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, currently serving a 15-year jail sentence for sex and graft offenses he denies.

Mahathir fired Anwar in 1998 amid disagreements over how to counter Asia's regional economic crisis, saying his former protege is immoral and unfit to rule.

Malaysia's constitutional monarch, Sultan Salahuddin Aziz, weighed into the unity debate on Monday, calling for the country's Muslim Malays to heal their divisions.

He said Malays, who account for 55 percent of Malaysia's 22 million people, should be wary of destroying their Muslim community or "ummah."

"The annihilation of the ummah is a nightmare that haunts us and we must not let this fear become reality," the king said.

Word war

In the last few days Mahathir, his deputy prime minister, and defense minister have all attacked PAS for remarks made by one of its religious teachers in past years.

The teacher said that UMNO supporters were not true Muslims and that only PAS voters would go to heaven.

Mahathir's UMNO won less than half the Malay votes in the last election, a year and a half ago.

His coalition depends largely on support from non-Muslim parties, mainly representing the country's Chinese and Indians.

Malaysia was rocked earlier this month by racial violence in which six people died in a poor area outside Kuala Lumpur after clashes between Malays and ethnic Indians.

A string of subsequent attacks on Indians raised police suspicions that a gang of Malay extremists could be involved.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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