Mahathir says Malaysian party faces revolt over graft

Malaysia's ruling party faces an internal revolt over an anti-graft purge, but will be voted out of power if it fails to act on corruption, former premier Mahathir Mohamad said Thursday.

A furore erupted in the ruling UMNO this week after 15 members were reprimanded over vote-buying ahead of internal leadership elections.

Many were linked to outgoing Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, triggering speculation that his deputy Najib Razak, who is to replace him shortly, was carrying out a vendetta.

Mahathir said the "peculiar decision" had undermined the credibility of the party's anti-graft enforcers, and urged UMNO to come to grips with the scourge of corruption.

"It is a choice of being rejected by the people or facing a split in the party," he told a press conference.

"If UMNO is not willing to take drastic action to show it is serious about getting rid of corruption, then they will be rejected in the (next) election. The choice is theirs."

Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar has also warned of the threat of "collapse" over the anti-corruption move, which has triggered howls of outrage from rival factions in the party.

UMNO, which leads the Barisan Nasional coalition, is still reeling from an unprecedented rebuke in general elections a year ago that saw the coalition lose five states and a third of parliamentary seats to a resurgent opposition.

Abdullah's failure to make good on pledges to root out corruption was one of the major factors in the drubbing at the polls.

"Already the people are disenchanted with Barisan Nasional. You can see a lot of disenchantment with UMNO, manifested in many ways. People are talking, people are unhappy," said Mahathir, who stepped down in 2003.

"We are going to see in the general election a change in the support of the government parties," he said. "They think the government parties have not delivered. And on top of it they think they practise corruption."

Mahathir, who publicly fought with Abdullah who he dismissed as corrupt and incompetent, also backed away from his earlier wholehearted support of Najib, who is to take the top job after UMNO's March 24-28 annual meeting.

"I will give full backing to Najib on one condition, that he does not appoint corrupt people into the cabinet," he said.