Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- Bersih not about Pakatan, it's about us!
- Political affray in Malaysia : Taken to the cleaners
- Bersih rally provides lessons to Malaysian gov't
- Breezes of change in Malaysia
| Bersih not about Pakatan, it's about us! Posted: 14 Jul 2011 06:36 PM PDT
This letter appeared in Malaysiakini today. I thought I would publish it because what was said in the letter reflects the sentiments of most Malaysians. It in fact dovetails with what I have been saying all along. We are not anti-politicians as much as we are pro-rakyat. This, the politicians have to understand. And BERSIH should not be turned into a political party but must remain a people's movement. Nirmala Naidu, Malaysiakini Dear Chandra Muzaffar, I refer to your letter in Star, July 13. I am just an ordinary citizen of Malaysia who is very passionate about her people and environment. As a responsible citizen, I pay all my bills on time, adhere to every rule and regulation and obey the law. I must say I am very disappointed with the current government. I am not a member of any political party but I am a supporter of what is right. There are too many wrongs going on in our country. That is why I support Bersih. It does not take a genius to figure out why the numbers were not there. With all the threats by the government and police, I would say at least 50 -100 thousand people were there (judging from the photos). This you cannot deny, Chandra. Just imagine, if KL was not locked down on July 9, I am sure millions would have come out and that is something the ruling government just did not want to see.
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| Political affray in Malaysia : Taken to the cleaners Posted: 14 Jul 2011 10:08 AM PDT
By The Economist MALAYSIA is one of South-East Asia's stabler nations; but a rally in Kuala Lumpur on July 9th in demand of electoral reform turned surprisingly nasty, leading to the arrest of more than 1,600 people. The police fired tear gas and water cannon into the crowd, and one man died of a heart attack. All those arrested were released fairly quickly, but Amnesty International, a London-based human-rights group, called it "the worst campaign of repression in the country for years". The government's reaction showed a lot of nervousness about how much opposition it can tolerate. In fact the crackdown started a few weeks ago after "Bersih 2.0" announced that it was going to stage the rally. Bersih, also known as The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, is a loose alliance of NGOs and activists (bersih means "clean"). It argues that all candidates should be given access to the mainstream media and that indelible ink should be used to stop people voting more than once. It all sounds uncontroversial, but not to the government. Bersih was declared illegal on July 1st and about 200 activists were rounded up. The march itself was then banned, although the authorities offered Bersih a stadium to meet in—and then withdrew the offer.
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| Bersih rally provides lessons to Malaysian gov't Posted: 13 Jul 2011 01:32 PM PDT
By Jia Ning Tan, Xinhua News KUALA LUMPUR, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Last weekend's rally in Malaysia posed a question to the government: should it look into the electoral system or are there lessons to be learned? On Saturday, floods of activists of the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections or Bersih joined an illegal street demonstration in Kuala Lumpur, demanding for an electoral reform. The authorities put the figure of demonstrators at five to six- thousand people. The situation returned to normal at 6 p.m. on the day and a total of 1,667 demonstrators were arrested, including the organizers of the rally but were released by Sunday. Meanwhile, thousands of activists living abroad also gathered in about 30 different cities around the world demonstrating for the same cause, making the rally the largest one over the past four years. Prime Minister Najib Razak repeatedly denied any shortcomings in the country's electoral system in Malaysia. He noted earlier that if the government could manipulate electoral results, then the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional ( Malay for National Front) would not have lost five states in 2008 General Election, would not lose the two-thirds majority in parliament and PAS (the opposition) would not have been administering Kelantan for the past 21 years. "We even display the electoral list for voters to check," he added. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad echoed his view, condemning the rally as politically-motivated. "Its objective is to tarnish the government's name and the police, so that the opposition will win," Mahathir said earlier this month.
MOTIVATION BEHIND, LESSONS EMBEDDED Analysts also said the rally was more than just about electoral reform. "You have the non-governmental organizations wanting the electoral reform, that was the principle reason; but all kinds of other groups also flocked into the bandwagon partly because they see that as a platform for them to surface their issues," Ibrahim Suffian, a political analyst from opinion research firm Merdeka Center told Xinhua in an exclusive interview. "You see the opposition parties and their supporting the Bersih rally partly because they see this as a platform on which they can show strength and energize their leadership," he said. "They see this as a platform they can raise the issues that they were critical of the government in recent times, like corruption, slowness in implementing policies," he added. He said although the government was not likely to bow to their demands considering how near the general election looms, Bersih succeeded in placing pressure on the government, triggering awareness about electoral reform among the people and mobilize the Malaysians living abroad. "They have placed some form of pressure in the government, they were able to mobilize Malaysians outside of Malaysia and I think for people who care about this issue, they can see the difference of treatment for demonstrators in overseas," Ibrahim said. And he expects the rally to better prep the government in handling dissent, which was under scrutiny recently after the rally. Police were claimed by the demonstrators and activists to be using excessive force when making arrests and dispersing the crowd in the rally an accusation the government said it was investigating. "In Malaysia, there are groups of people who are equally patriotic, equally responsible but may not agree with certain policies," he said. "I noticed a large number of young people who were there for the first time. The key lesson here is how the government can engage this segment society, who are not necessarily anti- government but they have different views, they need to be engaged, " he added, suggesting that the government would in the end find a middle ground between the people's grievances and what it can deliver to portray itself positively. Although it would likely embolden the opposition for now, giving them a sense of power, Ibrahim said it also allows the government to widen its focus, from a series of people-friendly policies and transformation programs to core issues that concern the younger generation, like rights and democracy. "The government needs to be transparent, acknowledge the flaws in the system, they need to begin to talk to these people," he added. Bersih, a non-government organization, was advocating for a clean and fair election in the next general election, which is expected to start within this year. They have eight demands, which include introducing automatic voter registration, reforms to postal voting and the use of indelible ink. The organization held a similar rally with a crowd of an estimated between 10,000 to 40,000 people in 2007 that dealt a major blow to the ruling coalition, who lost five states to the opposition during the 2008 election.
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| Posted: 13 Jul 2011 01:14 PM PDT By Rachel Harvey, BBC SEA Correspondent, BBC News Malaysia's reputation as a peaceful, multi-ethnic role model was shaken last weekend when thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital, Kuala Lumpur. The rally was organised by a collective of non-governmental organisations and activists calling itself Bersih - or the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections. The word "bersih" means "clean" in the Malay language. The group's stated aim is to push for reforms of Malaysia's electoral system, which it claims is skewed in favour of the governing coalition. In a determined effort to enforce a ban on the march, police locked down the centre of the city. Traffic was allowed - almost encouraged - to leave, but nothing was allowed back inside the cordon. The protesters pushed on regardless, gathering in front of the road blocks, determined to make their point. Police in full riot gear were waiting. Jets from water cannon flooded Kuala Lumpur streets. Clouds of tear gas billowed overhead - empty canisters were thrown back towards the police lines. Screaming headlines Protesters beat a retreat with baton-wielding police officers in pursuit. More than 1,000 people were arrested, though most were quickly released. A day later everything had returned to normal. Apart from the screaming headlines in the local newspapers, it would be impossible to tell anything untoward had happened. Standing on the spot where just 24 hours earlier he had been trying to direct the crowd, one of the protest leaders, Hairs Ibrahim, reflected on the way things had developed. "We promised things would be peaceful," he said. "But we felt there was a need to press the authorities to take these reforms seriously." Those reforms include a longer campaign period before polling day, equal access to the media for all parties, and accurate voter lists. "On polling day the dead get up to vote," he said. But the government says there is more to all this than meets the eye. Among the protesters' chants there were clearly recognisable opposition slogans, evidence, the government claims, of the reform movement's partisan agenda. In an office decorated with football trophies and photographs, Khairy Jamaluddin, leader of the youth wing of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), the party which has dominated Malaysian politics since independence more than 50 years ago, acknowledged the electoral reforms were needed. But he said Bersih's approach was deliberately confrontational. "If you are talking about electoral reforms, then there's a way of doing it. That's to work with the elections commission to push for some of the points they have highlighted and not try to create a kind of us-and-them polemic," he said. Haris Ibrahim does not deny Bersih is a political organisation. But he strongly rejects the charge the reform movement is bent on removing the government from power. "We don't pretend to be otherwise. We don't apologise for being political. But we are non-partisan." The government may, in part, be nervous because of the results of the last election in 2008. It retained power, but it lost five states - its worst ever performance. That election was preceded by a protest march organised by an earlier incarnation of Bersih - the new movement has the full name of Bersih 2.0. Changing dynamic Part of the problem for the government is it can no longer control the message the way it once did. One striking phenomenon of last weekend's protest was the number of people using their smart phones to record and upload video and to get real-time information on where the police blocks were and how to avoid them. Malaysia now has 60% broadband penetration and there is free wi-fi in many parts of Kuala Lumpur. The Malaysian Insider, an online news portal, has tapped into the growing demand for information. Its offices display clear influences from the new media ethos developed in the US. There are chalk boards on the walls with a mix of motivational messages, team objectives and a list of names who had signed up for an office bowling night. It is open-plan, informal, and hi-tech. Jahabar Sadiq, who is both editor and company boss, says he is convinced social media is changing the political dynamic in Malaysia. "Internet media is changing the way people think, giving them a wider choice between what the government says and what is actually going on," he said. And he made this striking prediction: "Someone within Facebook or Twitter will capture people's imagination, and he or she will take over leadership of this country, I think, within a decade." There are definitely stirrings of change in Malaysia. But this is not Egypt or Libya. Malaysia is not on the verge of a violent uprising. But there is a growing desire for a genuine and fair political choice and an increasing willingness to make that demand heard. |
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