Malaysia government wrests control of state, 65 arrested
(Reuters) – Malaysia's ruling coalition took control of a disputed legislature on Thursday as police arrested 65 people, including five opposition MPs, in a battle over who governed the peninsula's second largest state.
Police, backed by water cannon, deployed barbed wire around the state legislature in Ipoh, the capital of Perak state in northwestern Malaysia, while it held its first session since the state government was ousted.
Police stopped opposition supporters from entering the building and cleared a 500-metre exclusion zone. They detained anyone wearing black, the color chosen by the opposition to protest against the ruling coalition's takeover.
Perak is the focal point of tensions between the opposition and the National Front government that has ruled Malaysia for 51 years following the takeover of the state government in a move orchestrated by Najib Razak, the country's new prime minister.
In February, Najib convinced three opposition lawmakers to sit as independents, a move that deprived the People's Alliance of its majority in the state, one of five ruled by the opposition.
On Thursday, the National Front succeeded in ousting the speaker of the assembly and installing its own person in the post, effectively taking over the legislature, which was then officially opened by the son of the Sultan of Perak.
The former speaker was pulled from the building by police after scuffles and arguments inside the assembly.
Malaysia's home minister criticised the opposition's protests and the actions of the former speaker.
"What happened in the assembly was a mockery of the Malaysian democratic system," Home minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters in the country's administrative capital of Putrajaya.
The opposition had wanted new elections, which were resisted by a government that has lost four out of five state and parliamentary by-elections since a March 2008 general election.
A spokesman for Malaysia's Islamist party said that 65 people had been arrested, including five MPs, although police would not confirm the figure.
"We are willing to lose in an election but not to be treated like this," Salahuddin Ayub, an MP for the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party, told reporters before he was arrested.
ARRESTS MOUNT
When Najib took office last month he freed two political detainees, lifted a ban on two opposition party newspapers, called for a more open media, and pledged a revamp of a security law allowing detention without trial.
That fueled hopes that he would free up politics as well as removing restrictions on an economy that is facing its worst downturn since the Asian financial crisis and a booming budget deficit that has caused bond yields to widen.
However, in the run-up to the Perak assembly sitting this week, some 19 people have been arrested, ranging from a senior opposition figure to human rights activists and opposition supporters.
The opposition now charges that Najib, who took office in April, is intent on cracking down on dissent against his unpopular government.
"This is a war zone, a national and international disgrace," Lim Kit Siang, a senior member of parliament with the opposition Democratic Action Party, one of three parties in an alliance, said after he was denied entry to the state assembly.
