UPDATE 3-Anwar says can win power as Malaysia govt rocked

(Adds Anwar, prime minister)

By Soo Ai Peng and Jalil Hamid

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said on Monday he had already won over enough government parliamentarians to gain power after the administration was rocked by a minister's resignation.

The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition's law minister quit in the first overt sign of a rupture in the government after criticising the use of a harsh security law to imprison three people, including an opposition MP and a reporter.

Anwar, who has set out to oust the ruling coalition by Sept.16, met a setback this week when his attempt to recruit 30 Barisan Nasional deputies failed when the government sent 50 of its legislators on a "study trip" to Taiwan.

But at a rally on Monday of around 10,000 supporters he insisted that he had the numbers already.

We have the numbers... and tomorrow is D-Day," Anwar said.

So far, no members of the government's 140 MPs have publicly declared for Anwar, whose three-party rainbow opposition coalition of reformers, Islamists and ethnic Chinese has 82 seats in the 222-member Malaysian parliament.

Earlier in the day Law Minister Zaid Ibrahim's surprise resignation piled more pressure on Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and the coalition that has ruled this Asian nation for 51 years.

Abdullah said he had received Zaid's resignation and after a meeting with the minister had given him leave to think about it.

He also dismissed Anwar's challenge for power.

"We like to go on and on about this (change of government). It won't happen," he said at the breaking of the Ramadan fast in the northern Malaysian state of Terengganu, according to state news agency Bernama.

Abdullah's government has failed to reconnect with voters who have been hurt by rising prices and slowing economic growth after it surprisingly lost its two-thirds majority in parliament in elections in March to a resurgent opposition.

SMELLING BLOOD

Political tensions have unnerved investors in Malaysia. The cost of insuring the country's debt has risen sharply since the March election and the focus is now as much on Abdullah's ability to hold on to power as Anwar's ability to win it.