PPP may find itself out of BN sooner rather later

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 14 - The days of PPP, one of the founding members of the Barisan Nasional (BN), in the ruling coalition is numbered.

Last Tuesday, BN chairman Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had made it clear that the party was free to quit the coalition if it wanted to.

Today the coalition secretary-general Datuk Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor suggested the coalition already had a replacement for PPP already lined up.

"I am looking forward to welcoming IPF who has always been our friend, as a mate soon," Tengku Adnan said when opening the Indian Progressive Front's annual meeting here today.

The IPF is a splinter party of the MIC, and was formed following a split between Tan Sr M G Pandithan and Datuk Seri S Samy Velly in the 1980s.

Last year it appeared that IPF members would rejoin the MIC fold when Pandithan made up with his old foe Samy Vellu, the MIC president. Soon after their reconciliation Pandithan died.

IPF's role as an Indian-based party was given a fillip today with Tengku Adnan's suggestion that its long standing application to join BN is now being seriously considered.

His remarks will place more pressure on Datuk M Kayveas and his PPP, which is multi-racial but Indian-dominated.

Kayveas made a populist move recently by promising to quit BN if the Internal Security Act (ISA), which has been criticised heavily for its alleged abuse by the government to detain political foes and not security threats, is not amended before the next general elections.

Momentum is not mounting within BN, and Umno in particular, for PPP to leave sooner rather than later.

An editorial in the Umno-owned Mingguan Malaysia, the Sunday edition of Utusan Malaysia, could not have made the message clearer with its heading "Leave, Kayveas."

"The threat by PPP president M Kayveas to quit BN if the government does not amend the ISA is too much," the newspaper said.

Utusan added that it was not the first time Kayveas had issued threats to the BN leadership, adding that the PPP leader had also been highly critical of certain government policies in the past.

The newspaper said PPP should be expelled from the coalition.