Ten days after suffering heavy losses in a general election, Malaysia's prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, shuffled his cabinet on March 18th, hoping to stave off calls for his resignation from within his party, the United Malays National Organisation (umno). The removal of some scandal-tainted ministers and the elevation of a judicial reformer showed he is at least trying to get to grips with his problems. But Mr Badawi still seems to be shuffling deckchairs on a personal Titanic.rnThe National Front coalition, led by umno, won this election, as it has every one since independence from Britain in 1957. But it scraped barely half of the vote at national level and, most importantly, lost the two-thirds parliamentary majority it had held since 1974, which had allowed it to change the constitution at will.rnStraight after the election, Mr Badawi's embittered predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, called on him to resign. The retired leader's son, Mukhriz Mahathir, became the first umno official to echo his father's call.
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