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...Despite Malaysia's choreographed political system, Abdullah is something of an accidental Prime Minister. His iron-fisted predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled for 22 years, discarded three potential political heirs before settling on Abdullah in 2003. He was everything Mahathir was not: affable, cautious, nonthreatening. In the wake of several corruption scandals involving some of Mahathir's closest associates, it also helped that Abdullah was regarded as Mr. Clean. Nevertheless, many in Malaysia saw the now 68-year-old as a transitional figure, a placeholder until UMNO found someone more visionary. In January, Mahathir even claimed that he had picked...
...What Abdullah certainly did promise was to combat graft and strengthen civil liberties during his tenure. The vows so pleased Malaysian voters that in the 2004 elections, less than five months after Abdullah became Prime Minister, the National Front won its largest-ever mandate. But the euphoria hasn't lasted. Abdullah has been criticized for everything from restarting several of Mahathir's extravagant megaprojects to rolling back press freedoms that he himself had granted. At the same time, his stolid image as a compromise candidate has come back to haunt him. "His performance is disappointing, unexciting," says Kuala Lumpur-based...
...opposition candidate who could challenge Abdullah won't be running on March 8. Anwar Ibrahim, a former Deputy Prime Minister who was jailed for six years on corruption charges that human-rights activists considered politically motivated, is an impassioned orator who can draw crowds of tens of thousands. His cult of personality drives the People's Justice Party, whose racial diversity is rare in Malaysian politics. But Anwar was banned from politics for five years because of his jail time. The embargo expires in April. Given that Abdullah could have called elections any time over the next 15 months...
...need for concern. "It doesn't matter if it's Abdullah or someone else," says the mobile phone-shop owner. "As long as we support the government, there will be stability, and that's good for business." Not a ringing hometown endorsement, but it's all Malaysia's accidental Prime Minister needs...
...outstripped expectations. Serbia's nationalist leaders have been stoking confrontation. For example, surveillance cameras recorded police being ordered to leave their posts minutes before the crowd gathered for the attacks on foreign embassies; some did not return until 45 minutes after the first rocks began to fly. Yet Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica later declared himself satisfied with the performance of his police force, and Transport Minister Velimir Ilic even remarked that the damage done to the embassies pales next to Serbia's suffering over the loss of Kosovo. Foreign ambassadors, he said, "fared really well, considering what they deserved...