KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) is now training its sights on Umno’s Malay bastions in its pursuit of federal power, Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman warned his party in Johor today.

The Johor mentri besar said this was because PR has already locked up non-Malay support, adding that the opposition pact picked up 80 per cent of such votes in urban constituencies during Election 2008.

“The new approach, which was launched two years ago, is being ‘promoted’ with vigour after the recent Sarawak elections which saw the opposition winning many urban seats,” he was quoted as saying in a Bernama Online report today.

According to Ghani, who is state Umno liaison committee chairman, PR is attempting to convince the Malay community to reject Umno by voting for any candidate other than the Malay party’s in the upcoming general election.

He then urged the state’s Malays to put aside political affiliations and unite to combat what he described as moves to undermine the community’s future.

Increasing race rhetoric in recent days have sent clear signals of impending snap polls, which pundits predict Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will call for within the year.

The Malaysian Insider understands, however, that Najib is likely to delay snap polls until the end of this year or early 2012 as his party hunts for funds to finance a campaign to court Bumiputera and Indian voters and secure a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

It is understood Umno’s coffers were depleted after BN spent some RM500 million for the April 16 Sarawak election.

Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, however, told The Malaysian Insider that he believes Umno’s increasingly ultra-Malay stance as well as the emergence of a sex video aimed at discrediting PR’s image are definite signs that general elections will be called by August.

But BN insiders say Najib is cautious about calling elections soon as he wants to regain the coalition’s two-thirds parliamentary majority which now appears impossible with the Chinese snub continuing in the Sarawak election.

Chinese-based MCA took a battering in the historic general election — which also robbed BN of its customary two-thirds majority — when the party won only 15 out of 40 parliamentary seats it contested.