Secular Government Wins Malaysia Election

By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysia's secular government routed Islamic fundamentalists in Sunday's elections, helped by sweeping victories in two Muslim-dominated states.

The surprise wins in northern Terrenganu and Kelantan states indicated Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had succeeded in rolling back Islamist influence amid fears that religious fundamentalism was on the rise.
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In Kuala Lumpur, schoolteacher Cheah Meng Tze said he voted for the government because he feared the Islamic party's hardline rhetoric.

"I want my children to live in a country that is free of instability, terrorism and religious extremism," he said.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=516&e=9&u=/ap/malaysia_election


Seems like we could learn some lessons about how to defeat fundamentalist politics from the Malaysians!

The "secular" government has its own problems. The geographically separated states of Sabah and Sarawak (which share Borneo island with Indonesia and Brunei) have ethnically and religiously distinct populations which were essentially kept in a state of poverty until they voted Mahathir's Barisan Nasional party into their state governments. This was made more egregious by the fact that the revenue from Sabah's oil, a percentage of which was supposed to be used to finance the state's infrastructure, has all disappeared into federal coffers. Sarawak gave in a decade or two back, and has the modern city of Kuching to show for it; Sabah refused, their popular choice of leader spending many years in prison under Malaysia's draconian sedition laws. Finally, the federal government got their votes in Sabah by permitting a flood of illegal Muslim immigrants from the Philippines to take up residence there. Even that wasn't quite enough, so the state was assigned a rotating government where each party runs things for a two years...of course, things only work when Barisan Nasional is in the chair.

the people will win when most of the little people want the same as this Malaysian man...

quote

"I want my children to live in a country that is free of instability, terrorism and religious extremism," he said.

unquote

n/t