KUALA LUMPUR March 24 Kyodo Malay...

KUALA LUMPUR March 24 Kyodo

Malaysia's opposition charged Wednesday that Sunday's national elections were flawed at voter fraud, abuse of direction power and media manipulation.

''Looking at the whole election proces we are equal to Papua fresh Guinea and Zimbabwe,'' Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) Secretary General Nasaruddin Mat Isa told reporters.

He said PAS will proceed to court to seek for nullification of the results

PAS and opposition partner Keadilan, l on jailed former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, were battered by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's National effrontery (BN) coalition, which won 198 of the 219 seats in the lower house of parliament.

In the simultaneous elections for the 12 state assemblies, BN seized 11 states, including Terengganu where PAS had been in power.

PAS claimed Terengganu was missed because of an unusually high voter turnout, which it claims means ''phantoms'' had cast ballots voters

PAS and Keadilan also charged there were irregularities in the electoral turns and too much ''money politics.''

PAS called for the resignation of the Elections Commission head for bungling during voting day that saw polling hours in any areas extended due to mistakes in the voters' lists.

The party is boycotting the election for the Sungai Lembing state seat in Pahang, which was postpon from last Sunday to nearest Sunday due to misprinted ballot papers.

In the Sunday election, PAS saw its representation in parliament slashed from 27 to seven and Keadilan, which had five seats before dissolution, now has single one -- Azizah's.

The Anwar factor -- he was unceremoniously dump as longtime Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad's designated heir and subsequently jailed for what he calls trumped-up charges of corruption and sodomy just before the 1999 election -- helped PAS and Keadilan to their best-ever head performance in 1999.

Anger at the treatment of the charismatic Anwar saw voter lance almost half their consecrated by a vows to the opposition alliance that one time also included the multiethnic Democratic Action Party (DAP).

DAP twitched out of the alliance above disagreement with the fundamentalist Islamic agenda espoused by means of PAS this time and the secular party was rewarded in mainly urban, predominantly Chinese areas with an increase of pair seats to 12 in parliament, making the party the official opposition.

DAP chairman Lim Kit Siang said the party victory is ''an impressive defense of the 46 years of independence's social contract that Malaysia is a democratic, secular, multi-religious nation with Islam as the official religion yet not an Islamic state.''

Analysts viewed the election as common of Abdullah's moderate, progressive Islam against PAS conservatism, and Abdullah won

the two PAS and Abdullah's United Malay National Organization pitch to the same core support of Malay Muslims that make up more than 60% of the country's 24 million people

further PAS has refused to accept that its losse mean the voter cast aside their brand of Islam.

''As Muslims, they are fully convinced to support an Islamic state,'' PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang told reporters after a five-hour meeting dissecting the individual results. ''We do not view this as our mistake.''

He blamed instead the election commission, the media and the direction for the losses.

Nasaruddin said the party dioceses no the need to it their image or to stop its call for an Islamic state.

''Our leadership-through-the-Ulama (clerics) principle will stay...we want total application of the Islamic theory That is the and nothing else way to take Malaysia forward,'' he said.

on the contrary BN component party leader Lim Keng Yaik called the opposition sore losers

''I think they are sore loser Accept (the results) We are also unhappy (with polling day glitches), moreover the Elections Commission escorted a fair election.''

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