PENANG, Malaysia: Chanting "Long Live the Malays!" several hundred members of Malaysia's largest ethnic group gathered Friday on this largely Chinese island, defying a police ban on protests and raising communal tensions in the aftermath of sharp electoral losses by the country's governing party.
Rapid moves by newly elected state governments to abolish some of the long-held privileges of ethnic Malays have challenged the core of Malaysia's ethnic-based political system and inflamed the sensibilities of Malays, who until the March 8 elections thoroughly dominated politics through the country's largest party, the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO.
The opposition parties that beat UMNO and its partners in five states say affirmative action should be based on need rather than ethnicity. But the opposition, too, is struggling to contain fissures along ethnic lines as a Chinese opposition party competes with its Malay counterpart.
"We're living in very sensitive times," said Tricia Yeoh, director of the Center for Public Policy Studies, an independent research center in Kuala Lumpur.
The affirmative action program favoring the Malays has been in place for more than three and a half decades and gives Malays everything from discounts on new houses to 30 percent quotas in initial public offerings of companies. It is known as the New Economic Policy.
"The term is very emotive," Yeoh said. "I don't think many people have bothered to investigate the details of the policy itself. But it's an affirmation of their identity in the country, of their significance and their worth."
Demonstrators here, who were dispersed by the riot police, chanted "Allah Akhbar!" - God is great! - and vowed to return for future protests.
"This will continue," said Nasarudin bin Mat Nor, a 70-year-old retired schoolteacher who took part in the protest. "If there is no help for the Malays they will get poorer."
Malaysians are split as much along religious lines as ethnic, with Muslim Malays governed by a separate legal system. The protest Friday immediately followed Friday prayers at a nearby mosque.
The election results showed that the Malays themselves are split between educated, wealthy and often urban Malays and poorer families living in the countryside.
"UMNO is going to go through some sort of consolidation," said Ibrahim Suffian, director of the Merdeka Center, an independent polling agency. "A lot of people are looking for someone to take the fall for the results."
For the first time since independence from Britain in 1957 the governing coalition has lost control of Malaysia's largest and wealthiest states, including Penang, Selangor and Perak. The National Front coalition won 51 percent of the popular vote and just over 60 percent of the seats in the federal Parliament, down from 90 percent in the 2004 elections.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has vowed to stay on but is coming under increasing pressure to quit. On Friday, Mukhriz Mahathir, the son of the former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, openly called for Abdullah to step down.
Abdullah came to power in 2003 promising to sweep away pervasive corruption and make government more accountable. But a series of scandals, rising prices and protests by ethnic Indians over religious freedom and income inequality caused his popularity to plummet.
Mainstream newspapers here, which are mostly controlled by Abdullah's party and its partners, have emphasized squabbling among opposition leaders as they take control of state governments. A swearing-in ceremony Thursday was delayed when the parties could not agree who should fill the top government post in Perak.
"This is a process of coalition forming that is part of democracy," Tian Chua, the spokesman of the People's Justice Party, told Reuters on Friday. "We are learning it."
Thomas Fuller
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
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