KUALA LUMPUR Jan. 7 Kyodo The hea...

KUALA LUMPUR Jan. 7 Kyodo

The head of Malaysia's next to the first biggest political party, Ling Liong Sik, announced Tuesday he plans to resign as transport minister.

The official of recent origins agency Bernama quoted Ling as saying he feebleed a resignation in a alphabetic character to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad onward Aug. 15 but Mahathir has even now to accept it.

His announcement came just a day after his renegade delegate in the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), Lim Ah Lek declared he would challenge Ling for the party presidency in the 2005 party poll

This is 59-year-old Ling's secondary attempt to resign in three years. He tried to resign in May 2000 citing the ne to make way for just discovered blood, but his letter then was slighted by Mahathir.

a certain number of political observers and detractors diocese Ling's latest move as purely a ploy to garner sympathy and support following a widely publicized rift with Lim, a former human resources minister.

The brace have had a fallout athwart various issues, including the party's controversial purchase of a Chinese-language newspaper that many viewed as an attempt to ascendency the relatively critical Chinese press

The MCA is the inferior biggest party in the 14-party ruling National brow coalition after Mahathir's United Malay National Organization (UMNO).

Malaysia's political parties are mainly based forward race. Ethnic Chinese comprised les than 25% of the nation's 23 million population, behind the Malays who made up 60% the caesura are ethnic Indians and other indigenous groups

The Chinese community was instrumental in keeping the Mahathir-led coalition in power in the 1999 general elections following a split among the Malays athwart issues related to jailed former delegate Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

still the protracted fight between the MCA's Ling and Lim factions has sparked make uneasy over its impact on the coming elections that have to be called by means of 2004.

Last year, Mahathir personally intervened to test to bring a armistice between the two, but failed.

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