It was probably the menacing banner hung across the road saying "Jelutong Welcomes Political Prostitute" which gave Ms Umni Hafilda Ali cold feet at the last minute. The smartly dressed businesswoman, who was a star witness at the trial of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, is touring Malaysia soliciting votes for the government and angering opposition supporters. It was she who initiated Mr Anwar's political downfall last year by sending the Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, a letter alleging that he was having an affair with her brother's wife.
Two hundred people turned up to hear her last night outside the local HQ of Dr Mahathir's United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party in a poor area of Georgetown in Penang. However, fearing trouble from opposition sympathisers, the organisers substituted another bitter foe of Mr Anwar, Khairuddin Bin Abu Hassan, in polka dot shirt, well know for publishing a 1988 book, Fifty Reasons Why Anwar Can- not Become Prime Minister. Mr Anwar was evil and hypocritical, he said.
The mostly Muslim Malay crowd were handed out photocopies of a picture showing Mr Anwar's wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, gripping the arm of his lawyer, Karpal Singh, as she mounted a platform, with a crude caption saying: "Her husband is in jail and here she is touching another man" - something forbidden in strict Muslim code. They also received comic books with crude drawings depicting Mr Anwar's alleged sodomy.
This is the type of grassroots campaigning which has made Malaysia's 10th general election campaign the dirtiest since independence in 1957. Much is at stake. Malaysia's political system was plunged into crisis by the trial and conviction of Mr Anwar on corruption charges this year, and this snap general election is a critical test of the popularity and endurance of Dr Mahathir's National Front coalition, dominated by the mostly Malay UMNO.
"This election is important because for the first time the opposition parties have come together as a multi-ethnic alternative to the government," said Karpal Singh, taking a break in a Georgetown coffee shop yesterday from his own campaign for a parliament seat. The white-bearded 59-year-old lawyer, imprisoned twice in the 1980s for opposition activity, admitted, "winning the election is an unlikely feat, but we can deprive them of their two-thirds majority." If that happens, he said, the executive branch would lose its unchecked power and UMNO could no longer change the constitution at will.
It would probably also mean the end of Dr Mahathir's 18-year career at the helm of the former British colony, as a comfortable majority will look like a setback after UMNO's previous landslide victories. His personal stock has fallen: many rural Malays, his traditional admirers, call Dr Mahathir zalim, meaning cruel, for his treatment of Mr Anwar.
In their quest to create a new Malaysia, the opposition parties have formed themselves into the Alternative Front and carved up most of the 193 constituencies among them for the first time: 62 for the hard-line Islamic Party (PAS); 60 for the National Justice Party of Dr Wan Azizah (Keadilan); 44 for the predominantly Chinese party, DAP, and four for a small urban socialistleaning group called the Malaysian People Party. This brings together three pro-reform parties seeking a free media, improved human rights and an end to corrupt practices, and a radical Islamic party alienated by lack of government investment in the mostly impoverished areas it controls.
In trying to force political reform by offering a simple choice between the government and opposition, the Alternative Front is asking some Muslims seeking an Islamic state to vote for a Christian Chinese, and vice-versa, something which the government has been exploiting mercilessly. "It is very hard for Islamic people to support me," conceded Mr Singh, an Indian who once said there would be an Islamic state "over my dead body".
Dr Mahathir is also campaigning hard on the twin issues of prosperity and stability to maintain the majority support of the population, which is roughly 60 per cent Malay, 30 per cent Chinese and 10 per cent Indian. His timing is good. Growth and economic confidence have returned after the sharp contraction of the Asian crisis. The government has warned of Indonesian-like chaos if the Malay people abandon UMNO, which in alliance with pro-government Chinese and Indian parties has fostered racial harmony while advancing traditionally poorer Malays. Government billboards show opposition clashes with riot police to tarnish the opposition and warn of possible violence if UMNO wins.
This is pooh-poohed by opposition leaders. Some UMNO supporters take the threat seriously. "We think it might happen," said an organiser of the anti-Anwar rally. "We have told friends to stockpile sardines, sugar, flour and canned foods this weekend just in case." According to Mr Singh, "this is a below-the-belt strategy, telling people that if you don't vote for the government there will be trouble. There will be police at every corner to give the impression there is going to be imminent violence. They always use this tactic".
The government also does not hesitate to use state assets such as national television to press its campaign. Newspapers, dependent on the Ministry of Justice to renew their licences annually, slavishly follow the government line. The biggest Chinese language newspaper even airbrushed Mr Anwar out of a 1995 photograph of the nation's political elite, replacing him with deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Opposition party newspaper advertisements are banned and party newspapers may be sold only to members. The current DAP news sheet carries a message from Mr Anwar saying that UMNO cannot root out injustice and bring change because "the leader's action is corrupt, greedy and undemocratic".
The government is also using more conventional ways of seeking electoral support. Yesterday in Penang, where the election battle is particularly tough for UMNO, Mr Badawi arrived in a green executive helicopter to open a new dam on a resort coast road. The theme from Goldfinger blasted from loudspeakers as Mr Anwar's successor as deputy prime minister unveiled a plaque and released hundreds of pigeons.
Afterwards, relaxing in a pink armchair under an awning on top of the dam, he boasted of the government's record in building modern Malaysia. He languidly dismissed my question about bias of the media. "For those who support us it is a matter of their choice," Mr Badawi said. "For those who have chosen to say all those nasty things about us, that is also their choice. So please don't complain that there are people who support us."
