WASHINGTON: Malaysia’s ruling party is expected to suffer losses in elections expected early next year as it grapples with rare street protests and racial and ethnic tensions, experts told a forum here.

But Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s National Front coalition government should maintain its two-thirds majority in parliament unbeaten since independence in 1957, they said.

Unprecedented street protests demanding electoral reforms and highlighting racial discrimination erupted in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur this month, posing one of the biggest challenges to Abdullah since he took over from the largely authoritarian and abrasive Mahathir Mohamad in 2003.

Opposition parties in Malaysia did not provide a viable alternative electorally as they were still very personality driven and ideologically divided with limited capacity in terms of “real representation and aspect of governance,” said Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asian expert at John Hopkins University.

The National Front secured the largest majority in about three decades, sweeping 198 parliamentary seats to the combined opposition parties’ 20 seats, in the last elections held in 2004.

But Welsh predicted Abdullah’s United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the Front’s lynchpin, could lose up to 15 parliamentary seats in upcoming polls and its senior coalition partner the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) could drop about six seats.

—AFP