Opposition icon and Mr Abdullah's sharpest critic, Anwar Ibrahim, 58, is holding court before a cheering crowd of about 7,000 people. The subject is Mr Abdullah's policies to cut the deficit, remove subsidies and raise prices; moves that won him international praise but are causing great hardship to the urban poor.

It is payback time as Mr Anwar masterfully drives the knife in.

'He made his friends rich by making you poorer,' he said, rattling off details of multibillion-dollar contracts Mr Abdullah gave out in the past four years.

The former deputy prime minister states the amounts and names who took how much as commissions and the crowd is spellbound by the details.

'I was finance minister for eight years, I know how the corrupt system works,' Mr Anwar said.

'Even a taxi permit goes to only Abdullah's cronies,' he said, drawing loud cheers. 'What have the poor got from this incompetent fool? Unfulfilled promises, higher prices and violent crime.

'He is a complete failure, he has no ideas, no vision of the future.'

Mr Anwar is a former deputy prime minister who was jailed for six years on sodomy and corruption charges that lawyers say was politically motivated.

He was banned from politics for five years because of his jail time on a corruption conviction. The embargo expires on April 14. Mr Abdullah dissolved parliament 15 months ahead of his term, lending credence to criticism that the election on March 8 was aimed at excluding Mr Anwar.

Mr Abdullah, 68, is not sitting back and letting the opposition gain ground. He is hitting back hard and sometimes below the belt, a far cry from his 'live and let live' philosophy of earlier years.

'Abdullah is fighting for his political future. This election is a referendum on him, his performance and whether he should continue for another five years,' political analyst James Wong said. 'The opposition says he has failed. He says he has brought progress and needs a second mandate. This is the critical issue.'

Mr Abdullah, who had a long and largely unexciting political career including eight years in the wilderness for opposing Mahathir Mohamad in the 1980s, is unashamedly exploiting the government-controlled media to show the progress he had brought, swamping voters with economic data.

Last week, he presented voters with a report card of his performance in which he gave data that showed progress.

He said total trade had jumped from M$880 billion (HK$2.1 trillion) to M$1.113 trillion, gross domestic product rose from M$426 billion to M$504 billion and foreign reserves improved from M$100 billion to M$390 billion.

'If this is not progress, what is it?' he asked on national television.

He was an unlikely successor, chosen, according to his critics, for his bland and uncontroversial, if not timid, politics. But he has come into his own since taking over from Dr Mahathir in November 2003.

He has silenced his critics in the United Malays National Organisation - the dominant party in the ruling coalition - using patronage to win loyalty and rewarding his supporters. In short, he is doing everything a la Dr Mahathir, a feat that belies his critics' accusations that he is 'sleepwalking' in office.

When he issued his first mandate in 2004, Mr Abdullah famously wrote a letter to nearly a million voters, the first time any Malaysian prime minister had done so. The novelty endeared him to voters and won him the biggest mandate in Malaysian history. In the letter, he promised to clean up the bureaucracy and the police force, fight corruption, and vowed to defend democracy, press freedom and the secular constitution.

'Mr Abdullah has failed on these promises. His report card shows improvement in the economy and probably by using data that is massaged,' said Steven Gan, political analyst and editor. 'People are concerned about food and fuel prices, about corruption and crime.

'His performance is lacklustre, mediocre, and there is no progress in the important areas like fighting corruption, improving respect for rule of law and raising the quality of life for Malaysians.

'He is plodding along. He has not bitten the bullet to make the hard decisions to reform the economy, get the races together and to chart a new growth path in a competitive world, where exploiting cheap foreign labour is no longer an advantage.'

'Mr Abdullah,' he said, 'had no grasp of the future, no vision. He was taking Malaysia down.

'We are stuck with him because of the nature of patronage politics in this country and the enormous power of the office he occupies to kill legitimate dissent.'

Dr Mahathir also chipped in adding to Mr Abdullah's discomfort, claiming in January that he had told his successor before handing over that his inherited position was as a 'one-term' prime minister.

Mr Abdullah rubbished the claim saying the people would decide how long he remained as prime minister. He said he needed a second five-year term to complete all the 'major economic' projects he was busy launching during most of last year.

These included 'economic growth corridors' in the north, south, east and west of the country.

'I need another term; maybe two or more to get the growth corridors off the ground and to raise public wealth and energise the economy,' he said on Monday at a campaign rally in Penang, his home state.

But critics said if Mr Abdullah had failed in his first term he could never do it.

'He is indecisive. He cannot make the hard decisions to defend secular rights, rule of law and economic accountability,' said Din Merican, a US-educated economist, writer and political analyst.

The opposition sees Mr Abdullah, 68, as an easy target. They might get the crowds roaring in the urban centres where the rising cost of living has won them an unprecedented number of supporters, but it is a different story in rural areas where the government draws the bulk of its support.

In the countryside, Mr Abdullah is a hero.

Like elsewhere in rural Malaysia, in Sungkai, a town of 35,000 people about 180km north of the capital, Mr Abdullah's presence is larger than life. His familiar face wearing the pillbox Malay hat, stares out of posters that has blanketed the town.

'Don't risk your future,' warn banners strung across fences and power lines in this single-street town famous for its Chinese wonton noodles, sweet, seedless guavas and giant pomelos.

'Here Pak Lah [Abdullah's nickname] is a hero and the reason is that the price of rubber and palm oil has shot through the roof,' retired teacher Michael Ng, 67, said.

'Rural people who own a few acres of rubber or oil palms are cash rich. The cost of living is low and crime is unheard of.

'They credit Pak Lah for this fortune,' he said with a mocking snort. 'He did not make prices rise, but he is benefiting from it.'

In the agricultural heartland, Mr Abdullah largely remains unsullied.

'His solid family background, Islamic credentials and father-figure image is giving him a large edge in the battle for rural voters,' Shamsul Baharuddin, professor of politics at the National University of Malaysia, said.

'His father and grandfather are prominent Islamic scholars and revered by Muslims. These are big plus points for any Muslim leader.

'Status and standing are important in rural society and Abdullah is clearly head and shoulders above the pack.'

This coupled with gerrymandering that gives rural voters a bigger say compared with their urban counterparts will see the polls hand the prime minister another five years in power.

The system saw Mr Abdullah win only 64 per cent of the popular vote in 2004, but fill 91 per cent of the 222 seats in Parliament. But this time, urban anger will see to it that more opposition candidates are returned to Parliament and they are set to make life more difficult for Mr Abdullah.

After the election, an even tougher battle is looming ahead for him - his Umno party will hold its election mid-year and again Mr Abdullah will have to account for himself.