(AFP) news analysis

It's a long way from New York and Afghanistan, but a tiny constituency in rural Malaysia is feeling the shockwaves from the September 11 terror attacks in a by-election fight.

Voters due to cast their ballots on Saturday are bombarded daily with stark images of war and atrocities as Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's ruling coalition paints the opposition as a Taliban-in-waiting.

State-owned television airs propaganda clips juxtaposing images of opposition leaders alongside slow-motion footage of a kneeling, burkha-clad woman being executed by a turbaned gunman in Afghanistan.

Another clip shows opposition members attending a meeting and a US bomber on a mission over Afghanistan to oust the then-ruling Taliban militia and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network.

The campaign is the latest signal that Mahathir, a moderate Muslim who leads a multi-cultural coalition, believes he can claw back lost support by using the fallout from September 11 against the opposition.

His main target is PAS, which wants to establish a rigid Islamic state in the country and trebled its parliamentary seats in 1999 elections.

PAS is not fighting the by-election for the Indera Kayangan state assembly seat in Perlis, but it is a member of an opposition alliance represented in the election by Keadilan.

"Unfair and unethical"

Keadilan spokesman Cheah Kah Peng said the television clips had an impact on Chinese female voters, who are crucial for an opposition victory in a seat where Chinese make up 46 percent of the electorate.

"We are countering the ad by talking to them in small groups. They are angry with the government's dirty tactics. The ruling National Front (BN) will suffer a backlash," he said.

A spokesman for the opposition Chinese-dominated DAP, Ronnie Liu, told AFP that Keadilan was being attacked for supporting PAS, which was accused of being Malaysia's Taliban.

"Voters are being told that voting Keadilan means voting Islamic extremism and religious militants," he said. "It is very unfair and unethical."

The DAP itself, however, withdrew from the opposition alliance soon after the terror attacks on the United States in September last year over PAS's plans to introduce an Islamic state.

The fear of Muslim militancy has made Mahathir's moderate form of Islamic rule seem a safe haven in a frightening new world, analysts say, forcing PAS, which had grown in strength while accusing Mahathir's government of being corrupt and un-Islamic, onto the defensive.

Mahathir has suggested that PAS is linked to an alleged plot by Afghan-trained militants to overthrow the government by force.

Dozens of suspects, many of them PAS members, have been detained in recent months.

The seat in the state assembly, which fell vacant on the death of Khor Liang Tee last month, was previously held by the ruling BN coalition through the MCA.

Former colleagues

The MCA's candidate Oui Ah Lan, 58, a former headmistress, is being challenged by a former teaching colleague Khoo Yang Chong, 60, of Keadilan.

Some analysts predict a close fight but Mahathir, 76, who has been in power for 20 years, has expressed confidence in a win for the ruling coalition.

The Indera Kayangan constituency incorporates the area that forms the Perlis state administrative centre. It has an electorate of 7,976 voters - 47 percent Malays, 46 percent Chinese and 5 percent Indians.

In the 1999 general election, the MCA garnered 3,825 votes, defeating Keadilan's candidate by 1,974 votes.