Anwar Ibrahim said only fraud can stop his Malaysian opposition from scoring a historic election win as the rival sides launched a last-ditch campaign blitz Saturday on the eve of a tense vote. Sunday's elections are the first in the country's 56 years of independence in which the only government Malaysia has known faces possible defeat.
The uncertainty has given rise to a bitter campaign, with Prime Minister Najib Razak warning of chaos and ethnic strife under the opposition, which has countered with numerous allegations of government vote fraud. Anwar set the stage for a possibly destabilising challenge to the results, accusing the Barisan Nasional (National Front) regime of cheating to thwart what he called a "democratic revolution", urging voters to turn out en masse.
"It's electoral fraud, the Election Commission's complicity in the crime, attempting to steal the elections from the people," he told AFP in an interview in his home seat in the state of Penang. He added: "Unless there's a major, massive fraud tomorrow... we will win." Najib's government denounced the claim. "The government strongly rejects Mr Anwar's latest allegation because the Elections Commission has gone to great lengths to ensure Sunday's election is free and fair," it said.
Both Anwar and Najib campaigned in their home regions where they will cast their own ballots early Sunday. Najib's ethnic Malay-dominated Barisan has tightly held power in the multi-racial nation for decades, steering it from a backwater to an economic hub with some of Asia's highest living standards. But its grip is slipping, with a new generation of voters increasingly impatient at corruption, controversial policies favouring Malays and authoritarian tactics.
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