Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi ended months of speculation by announcing that Parliament would be dissolved tomorrow, paving the way for the 11th general election, which must be held within 60 days.

Abdullah announced the dissolution through a statement to national news agency Bernama. Earlier he had chaired the weekly cabinet meeting.

The premier said that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong had consented for the 10th parliament be dissolved effective March, 4 2004 in accordance with Article 55 of the Federal Constitution.

The premier was also quoted as saying that the Agong signed the declaration on the dissolution today.

Except for Sarawak, all state governments will be advised to similarly dissolve their state legislatures effective the same date, he said. Sarawak just held its state elections three years ago.

According to the Prime Minister, the Election Commission will fix the dates for nomination and polling. It is widely expected to be held by end of this month.

When contacted, EC chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman said the commission will only decide the dates after receiving writs of dissolution from all state legislative assemblies.

A total of 219 parliamentary seats and 505 state seats will be contested in the election.

Fierce opposition

This will be the first real political test for Abdullah, who was sworn into office on Oct 31 last year after Dr Mahathir Mohamad stepped down after 22 years in power.

Abdullah has strong religious credentials, having majored in Islamic studies at University Malaya. As acting Umno president, he will face fierce opposition from the hardline Islamic party (PAS).

In the 1999 polls, it wrested control of a second state, Terengganu, while retaining Kelantan and tripling its haul of parliamentary seats to 27.

Although Barisan Nasional (BN) was returned to power with two-thirds of the parliamentary seats, Umno's tally of seats dropped from 94 to 72.

Abdullah's 12-party BN coalition, led by Umno, currently holds 152 seats out of 193 in the lower house of Parliament, down from 166, but well above the two-thirds majority required to pass constitutional amendments.

Barisan Alternatif (BA) won 45 parliamentary seats and 113 state seats, the majority of which were in Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah.

Polls focus

The focus of the coming general election will be on the states of Terengganu, Kelantan, Kedah and Perlis and a handful of state and parliamentary seats in Perak, Selangor, Pahang, Malacca and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur which were won by the opposition in the last outing.

BA won 13 parliamentary and 41 state seats in Kelantan, while BN managed to retain only one parliamentary seat - Gua Musang - and two state seats there. In Terengganu BA won all eight parliamentary seats and 28 of the 32 state seats.

Elsewhere, the BA won eight state seats each in Pahang and Perak, six in Selangor and four in Malacca. They also won three parliamentary seats in Perak, one in Malacca and four in Kuala Lumpur.

The results were a reflection of a swing in trend, where the majority of Malay voters switched their support from Umno to the opposition parties PAS and Keadilan.

However, this was offset by good support for BN in the 61 semi-urban multi-ethnic seats - comprising 22 seats where no ethnic group constitutes a majority and 39 small Malay-majority seats - where it captured 60 seats.

This means about 45 percent of the seats won by BN in the peninsula, basically with the support of non-Malays voters, while BN Sarawak and Sabah (including Labuan) contributed 28 and 17 parliamentary seats respectively, to seal the coalition's overall victory.

Although the BN won 76.7 per cent of the parliamentary seats, it polled only 56.5 percent of the popular vote (compared to 65 percent in 1995).

Out of the 144 parliamentary seats won by BN in the peninsula, 59 seats were generally in rural the areas with 67 percent of the electorate were Malays voters. Generally, Malay electorate in these seats split their votes between BN/Umno (49 percent) and the BA/PAS (51 percent).

Chinese voters in the 24 Chinese-majority seats similarly split their votes between the BN (51 percent) and the BA (45 percent), while the majority of the Indians votes went with the BN.

Marginal seats

Of the marginal parliamentary seats (comprising 50 out of 144), 29 went to BN and 21 to BA.

Of these seats, 26 were won with less than 5 percent majority, and the remainder by margins ranging from 5 to 10 percent.

This means an additional 5 to 6 percent swing in favour of the opposition coalition would have favoured the BA in the 29 seats captured by BN.

If this trend continues, chances are the BA coalition will retain Kelantan and Terengganu, and at the same time, may realise its dream of capturing Kedah and Perlis this time around.

The Election Commission's (EC) redelineation exercise last year saw the parliamentary constituencies increased from 193 to 219 and the state seats from 467 to 503.

Although there is no additional state and parliamentary seats in Terengganu, Kelantan, Kedah and Perlis, the existing constituencies were redrawn, which involved the shifting of many opposition strongholds to new constituencies.

BN's success in 1999 was due to a good performance in the semi-urban multi-ethnic constituencies, an element which is clearly reflected in most of the new constituencies - parliamentary and state - drawn during the recent delineation exercise.

With this, BN and Umno in particular is confident of winning more parliamentary and state seats in Kelantan and Terengganu.

The BA, and PAS in particular, has also claimed that the opposition is now in the best position to win Kedah and Perlis as it expects Malays to continue showing their support.

PAS is expected to highlight the issue of the Sekolah Agama Rakyat which caused a political stir after the BN government decided to stop granting annual financial assistance to Islamic religious school nationwide.

For the non-Malay community, the major issues are mostly related to mother-tongue education and corruption.

The government's recent decisions to prosecute Eric Chia in the Perwaja case, and cabinet minister Kasitah Gadam have been seen as an attempt by Abdullah to reflect his earnestness in fighting corrupt practices in the private and public sector.