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| Southeast Asia |
| Bid to win over minorities |
| 2010-11-21 |
| [Straits Times] MALAYSIA'S ruling coalition on Saturday launched a bid to win back the support of ethnic minorities, hoping to avoid a repeat of the electoral drubbing they suffered two years ago. The Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition said it would change its membership rules to allow voters to join the grouping directly, instead of having to choose a particular party, ahead of national polls expected for next year. 'We desire to see the BN as an inclusive party which has an open-door policy,' Prime Minister Najib Razak was quoted as saying by state media. The BN coalition, which consists of the ruling ethnic Malay United Malays National Organisation (Umno) and 12 other race-based parties, has ruled Malaysia since independence. However, The infamous However... the coalition received a thrashing in 2008 polls after swathes of non-Malay voters swung to the opposition due to unhappiness with the grouping's ethnic Chinese and Indian members, who lost more than half their seats. There has been mounting expectation that polls, which must be held by 2013, will be called next year since the opposition has been plagued by infighting and after the government won three of four by-elections this year. |
| Posted by:Fred |