KUALA LUMPUR Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad urged his ruling party to stop bickering over party posts and to fully support his decisions if it wants to retain power in the country, DPA reported.

Closing the three-day annual assembly of his United Malays National Organization (UMNO) in Kuala Lumpur, the premier also urged party members to strive for excellence by working harder and being more disciplined.

The 75-year-old Mahathir, who is UMNO president, received a standing ovation from the more than 2,000 party delegates when he asked whether they pledged to put party interests before their own to ensure victory in the next general election in 2004.

He said part of the reason why UMNO performed dismally in the 1999 general election, when it lost a sizable number of seats to the fundamentalist opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), was because of disgruntled party members.

These members, who were not picked as UMNO candidates in the election, often took revenge by trying to "sabotage" any victory of the party candidate.

Mahathir slammed PAS as "traitors" to the Malay race by misusing Islam for political gains and for telling the Malays to reject the "secular" government and its development programs to better the lives of the Malays.

He called on UMNO members to be the "torchbearer" to show other non-party Malay members, including those who support PAS, how Malay Muslims could improve themselves by studying harder and gaining knowledge such as information technology.

Mahathir, who would be in office for 20 years next month, said he hoped UMNO members would heed his repeated advice over the years that there was no easy way or short cut to success except through hard work.

"I've pleaded, I've begged, I've resorted to tears, I don't know what else I should do next. Stand on my head?" he told the Assembly.

UMNO, which has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957, has been losing support among the country's Malay Muslim majority to PAS, which now rules two state legislative assemblies and tripled its parliamentary seats in the 1999 election.

Since the election, Mahathir has ordered a crackdown within the party to wipe out rising corruption and "money politics" after party members were found to have offered bribes to win party posts.