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| Southeast Asia |
| Malaysia's Anwar promises pro-minority policies |
| 2008-09-03 |
| (PTI) Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim today promised to replace the discriminative economic policies of the present government with equal rights to the minority Indian and Chinese communities if he comes to power. Anwar said "archaic" policies that demanded mandatory Malay equity in companies would also be done away with, adding that affirmative action programmes would be retained to help the poor irrespective of their race. He said that affirmative action by his government would be transparent and not on the expense of the economy. The leader said his plan to seize power from the Badawi led government on September 16 was still on the track but refused to give the numbers of defectors from the ruling party. Referring to his plans, Anwar said he had held talks with ruling party lawmakers and the response was "very good" but declined to elaborate on the issue. Badawi's ruling coalition of Barisan National has a slender majority of 30 members in parliament. Anwar (61) has emerged stronger after securing a landslide victory in recent by-election. Referring to his threat to form the government in a couple of weeks he noted "It (fasting month) is not a problem. Parliament is only on leave. It is still there. Fourteen days is a long time. Even Winston Churchill said seven days in politics is a long time." |
| Posted by:Fred |