Thousands of Malaysians in a riverside town on Borneo voted yesterday in a special election that will show whether the opposition can threaten the ruling coalition’s dominance in one of the country’s biggest states.
At stake is a parliamentary seat in Sibu town in Sarawak state, a longtime stronghold of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s National Front coalition, which has long commanded support among Sarawak’s main population of indigenous tribes.
The state is politically crucial because opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s three-party alliance needs to win more seats there if it wants to achieve its aim of wresting federal power in general elections expected before 2013.
The opposition hopes to win in Sibu because two-thirds of the nearly 55,000 voters are ethnic Chinese, who have increasingly accused the ethnic Malay-dominated government of racial discrimination.
Najib made a surprise visit to Sibu late on Saturday after observers said the opposition could triumph in the constituency, which the National Front won in 2008 general elections with a 3,235-vote majority.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
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