The following is a list of key issues likely to feature in campaigning for the forthcoming general election. Parliament will be dissolved tomorrow to pave the way for the Election Commission to set a date for the vote, which is expected before the end of March.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

This is the first election in more than 22 years in which the ruling coalition has not been led by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Attention will be focused on his successor, Pime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who took over when Mahathir retired last October.

The election will be the first real test of Abdullah's ability to hold together the often fractious Umno, which is the dominant force in the ruling National Front coalition.

Any significant loss of support for Umno could see Abdullah challenged for the leaderhsip at the party congress later in the year.

Role of Islam

Some 60 percent of Malaysians are Muslims, and the role of religion in government is a constant issue of debate in this multicultural country, which has large ethnic-Chinese and Indian minorities.

The main opposition group, the hardline Islamic PAS, says the government is too secular and wants to turn Malaysia into a theocratic Islamic state complete with syariah laws providing for amputations and stoning to death.

PAS competes for the votes of Muslims with Umno, which also plays the Islamic card, claiming that it is the true representative of the religion and PAS offers a distorted version.

The government has used the international campaign against terrorism to paint PAS as dangerously militant, and has detained several party members without trial for alleged links to terrorist groups.

Race

There are undercurrents of discontent among the economically-dominant Chinese and the Indians over preferential treatment for the Malay majority in education and business, but the major parties representing the two ethnic groups form part of the ruling coalition.

They have little alternative as they do not have the numbers to win power themselves, and prefer the known policies of Umno - which has led the National Front since independence from Britain in 1957 - to the Islamic militancy of PAS.

Corruption

All opposition parties, including PAS, accuse the government and the ruling National Front of widespread corruption and cronyism developed through its decades in power.

Prime Minister Abdullah has made the fight against graft a central plank of his new administration, and high-profile cases have begun coming before the courts.

While these developments have been widely welcomed, opposition parties remain sceptical of his ability or willingness to take on political heavyweights within the party.

Anwar Ibrahim

The case of the former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, who was sacked by Mahathir and later jailed, was a central issue in the last elections in 1999, but attention to his plight has faded.

His cause - he says he was framed on sodomy and corruption charges to prevent a challenge to Mahathir - is kept alive mainly by Keadilan, headed by his wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

Anger over the treatment of the popular Malay politician, along with disgust over unchecked corruption, are seen as the causes behind a noticeable shift in allegiance by Muslim voters from Umno to PAS in the 1999 election. - AFP