KUALA LUMPUR A crackdown on religious schools and some mosques is a sign of a growing battle between the government and Islamic hardliners for the hearts and minds of Malaysia's majority Muslim population, analysts say.

In the past month Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's government has withdrawn financial aid to all 2,500 private religious schools and his home state of Kedah has announced that sermons in suspect mosques will be videotaped.

Both the schools and the mosques stand accused of spreading anti-government propaganda.

"Even the children of my party members who attend such schools have been brainwashed and forced to hate government leaders," Mahathir said recently.

"The children return from school and ask their fathers to remove pictures of 'Pharaoh' from their homes," he said in reference to the title bestowed on him by the opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) equating him with an ancient Egyptian ruler infamous for forcing his servants to worship him instead of God.

In Kedah, where PAS has strong support, the state government announced that Friday sermons in six mosques known to be spreading anti-government messages would be videotaped, while those in the remaining 540 mosques in the northern state would be audio-taped.

Stripped of posts

Imams found guilty of "abusing their positions and disseminating anti-government messages through their sermons" will be stripped of their posts, said Kedah Chief Minister, Syed Razak Zain (photo)

Kedah is in PAS's northern stronghold where it already holds the states of Kelantan and Terrenganu. It has also set its sights on taking Mahathir's home state in the next elections due by 2004.

The hardline party, which wants to introduce theocratic Islamic rule complete with Syariah laws prescribing amputation for theft and stoning to death for adultery, campaigns against Mahathir on the grounds that he is not true to Islam.

"The government is worried that if they don't do something, we'll all be like the children following the Pied Piper of Hamlin but instead it'll be the Pied Piper of PAS," the executive director of the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre, Abdul Razak Baginda, told AFP .

"PAS believe they have the upper hand and the government needs to break that power they have of being the so-called custodians of Islam.

"Something has gone terribly wrong in this country. The government is only now waking up to this and realising they could possibly lose power."

Making inroads

National University of Malaysia political scientist P. Ramasamy agreed that "PAS is making inroads (among Malay Muslims) by using Islam as a weapon" but said Mahathir's ruling coalition would win the elections because of the support of non-Muslims.

Mahathir's United Malays National Organisation (Umno) heads a National Front coalition which includes parties aligned to Malaysia's large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, which jointly make up more than a third of the population of 23 million.

An attempt by the opposition to form a similar Alternative Front fell apart shortly after the September 11 terror attacks on the United States when the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party pulled out over fears of Islamic militancy.

But Umno still needs to regain support among the 60 percent of the population who are Malays and therefore Muslims, after PAS made sweeping gains in 1999 elections.

Mahathir last week pointed to a trend which might make this difficult the growing popularity of Islamic parties around the world in the face of the West's war on terrorism which is often perceived as a war on Islam.

The Malaysian prime minister has sided with the West in the campaign against terrorism, although he frequently criticises its conduct and might find his party has a price to pay when Muslim voters go to the polls.

Mahathir himself will not stand in the next elections having announced that he will retire from politics in October 2003, after leading this multiracial, multireligious Southeast Asian nation for 22 years. AFP