H-Net* until the court case against his jailed former deputy Anwar Ibrahim is resolved

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Mahathir was reported as saying he did not expect to go to the polls until the court case against his jailed former deputy Anwar Ibrahim is resolved. Malaysia's Mahathir tips late polls, predicts higher growth KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29 (AFP) - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has predicted soaring growth next year in a vindication of his controversial capital controls, a report said Wednesday. Mahathir, in an interview with the Asian Wall Street Journal in New York, was also quoted as saying he was in no rush to call a general election, which must be held by June next year but is widely expected sooner as the economy recovers. Mahathir was reported as saying he did not expect to go to the polls until the court case against his jailed former deputy Anwar Ibrahim is resolved. The economy shrank by 7.5 percent last year and is officially tipped to grow just one percent this year. But Mahathir was quoted as predicting growth of five percent or so in 2000 and seven to eight percent subsequently. Hailing the capital controls imposed in September 1998 which he said would be retained, the premier said: "We've proven that we can turn around the economy and make it grow." He added: "While we still welcome foreign capital, we want only that capital which is not too speculative (and which will) come in for serious investments in our economy." Mahathir, who was in the US attending official functions, was quoted as saying that because the courts had limited what he could say about Anwar's case, and because that restriction may cost him votes, he did not expect to call an election until the case was resolved. "We can win now, but we want a two-thirds majority," he was quoted as saying. "That means we'd have a strong government." The National Front coalition which Mahathir heads has had a two-thirds parliamentary majority, allowing it to change the constitution, for the past three decades. In a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations in New York on Tuesday, Mahathir warned against foreigners involving themselves in the upcoming polls by supporting the opposition. The options were either the tried and tested National Front or a loose coalition of opposition parties dominated by the fundamental Islamic party PAS, a party "noted for misusing and misinterpreting Islam to its political advantage," he was quoted as saying by the state news agency Bernama. "Please understand that whilst in Malaysia there are corporations that can take on the world, whilst there are hordes of Malaysians who are eager to be in the vanguard of IT and multimedia age, there are also quite a number who believe that television sets should be thrown into the river because they are an instrument of Satan," he said. Anwar, Mahathir's former heir apparent was sacked as deputy premier and finance minister in September 1998, days after the capital controls were imposed, and arrested September 20. He was jailed for six years in April for corruption and is now on trial on a sodomy charge, which was adjourned after his lawyers alleged there had been attempts to poison him with arsenic. Mahathir told the Asian Wall Street Journal the poisoning claim was "really a ridiculous accusation ... he had this very minute amount of arsenic in his urine which is compatible with the ingestion of some seafood."