Barisan Nasional leaders have accused Keadilan of trying to manipulate voters in Indera Kayangan, Perlis by raising the "illegal" Chinese educationists meeting, which was put off on Wednesday by the police.

Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he had spoken to several police officers and they have clarified the matter.

"The police only went in to tell them that there was no need to have the meeting and asked them to postpone it," said Abdullah, who is also home affairs minister, in an attempt to diffuse the issue in the final hours of the by-election campaign.

"The organiser agreed and dispersed peacefully" he said.

Abdullah added Malaysians should move towards building mutual confidence, respecting each other and sharing power among the different races.

"We should reject this kind of racial politics (as practised by Keadilan), it is not good for Malaysia," he stressed.

Abdullah was speaking to some 1,200 people at a dinner function organised by MCA at a temple last evening in Indera Kayangan.

Vernacular schools

Earlier, Keadilan distributed handbills saying riot police were deployed at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall to "coercively" stop the United Chinese School Committees' Association of Malaysia, popularly known as Dong Zong, from holding a meeting.

The meeting was supposed to be attended by representatives from various Chinese organisations to endorse a proposal to the government to convert a nearly completed Vision School in Selangor to a Chinese primary school.

Vision School is a government proposal to place schools of different teaching mediums - Malay, Chinese and Tamil - in one compound.

The project sparked off strong protests from mother-tongue campaigners who believed that it was a tactic by the government to abolish vernacular schools in the long run.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had last week met several key clan association leaders to assure them about the government's commitment to developing Chinese schools.

The leaders involved subsequently urged Keadilan not to use Chinese education as its campaign fodder.

Despite this advice, Chinese education has dominated the campaign issues for tomorrow's Indera Kayangan by-election. Some 47 percent of the voters are Chinese, while Malays, Indians and others make up the rest.

No police permit

At the MCA dinner yesterday, Deputy Home Affairs Minister Chor Chee Heung told reporters that he had spoken to Inspector-General of Police Norian Mai about the aborted meeting.

"From what I was told, the police went in and told the people that they had to disperse as the meeting had no permit," he said.

Chor stressed that there were no Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) personnel at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall building as claimed by several quarters. Those deployed are believed to be members of the Light Strike Force (LSF).

"Police were just worried about the meeting as there were a lot of non-Dong Zong people in the premises. The organiser agreed to disperse," said Chor who is also an MCA central committee member.

Meanwhile, Keadilan Youth executive member Diong Chi Tzuoh described Chor's remarks as "ridiculous".

"Why couldn't they (Dong Zong) have the closed-door meeting and why were the riot police necessary ?" questioned Diong, who is heading the party's Indera Kayangan by-election campaign.

He said the unprecedented move by police to stop a private meeting among Chinese groups was to instill fear into the voters so that they will feel threatened and be reluctant to vote for Keadilan.

Police Act invoked

The aborted meeting was called by Dong Zong, which is the umbrella body of Chinese schools' board of governors, to discuss matters pertaining to national Chinese primary schools and Vision Schools and the status of the Chee Wen primary school in Subang Jaya.

The group also wanted to get the endorsement from the Chinese community to lobby the government to convert a completed Vision School compound in Subang Jaya to Chee Wen school instead.

About 300 people - mostly from Chinese education groups and representatives from the Subang Jaya residential areas - turned up for the meeting but were shocked by the presence of police on the premise.

Some 20 police personnel cited the Police Act and blocked the entrance to the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall building just before the meeting was about to commence.

According to section 27A of the Police Act, any police officer can order individuals involved in an indoor gathering to disperse if the activity is deemed to be prejudicial to national security or to incite public disturbance.

After negotiations with the police that lasted for two hours, the organising party decided to postpone the meeting.