| Stage Set for Malaysian Electoral Confrontation |
| Asia Sentinel, Friday, 20 April 2012 |
Are we set for another one of these?
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Street theatre intensifies prior to expected election
Rejection of a request by the electoral reform group Bersih to hold an April 28 sit-in at Dataran Merdeka (Indepedence Square) is a gamble that could turn into a public relations disaster for the Malaysian government, observers in Kuala Lumpur say.
Representatives of the Kuala Lumpur City Council Friday notified Bersih, a coalition of some 150-odd organizations demanding what they term as free and fair elections, that the permit wouldn’t be granted.
The Bersih 3.0 protest hadn’t been gaining the traction that its predecessor did in July of 2011, when what the organization says were 50,000 marchers were set upon by police with water cannons and tear gas. The resultant outcry in the international press and by human rights organizations shaved 20 percentage points off Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s popularity in public opinion polls.
Najib was forced to go onto the offensive, offering a series of amendments or replacements for unpopular laws including the Internal Security Act, the Publications and Printing Presses Act and several others. His popularity has since rebounded from a low of 59 percent in the wake of the crackdown. It is difficult to imagine that with an election believed to be a month or two away he would dare that kind of opprobrium again.
The Barisan Nasional is currently pulling out all the stops to get the polls underway, with preparations “in full swing,” one United Malays National Organization party operative recently told Asia Sentinel. Najib’s personal popularity, currently at 69 percent, is built on improving public confidence in the general economy and considerable pump-priming with a budget built to please the rakyat, or public. The government can probably expect to stay in power, political observers say, although there is little chance of regaining the historic two-thirds majority in parliament that the coalition had held since independence until 2008.
But while Najib may be personally popular, the Barisan is not. The Malaysian Chinese Association, the second biggest party in the government, is beset with a massive scandal over construction of the Port Klang Free Zone, which is mired in billions of ringgit of debt. The Merdeka Center poll that gave Najib a comfortable lead found that fully a third of those who thought he was doing a good job would vote for the Pakatan Rakyat, the three-party opposition coalition made up of the ethnic Chinese Democratic Action Party, the Islamic fundamentalist Parti Islam se-Malaysia, and opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s own Parti Keadilan Rakyat, or People’s Justice Party, largely made up of urban ethnic Malays.
The thinking of those gambling on shutting down the rally apparently is that Dataran Merdeka is not listed among the places permitted under the Peaceful Assembly Act which was only recently passed by the Dewan Rakyat. Jaringan Melayu, a Malay NGO, was recently banned from protesting there. The theory is that enough people will see Bersih as lawbreakers that they will be turned off by their tactics.
“Why does Bersih think they can break the law and hold the Government to ransom?” asked an UMNO source. “Are they above everyone else? Law abiding citizens have to give way?” In the practice of street politics, however, that hardly matters.
“This Bersih sit-in was not getting the kind of attention that last year’s did, and in fact last year’s only got going after the authorities came down hard on the organizers and started blocking roads, having road blocks on the highways from the north and south leading to KL, etc.,” a Kuala Lumpur businessman told Asia Sentinel. “That created the mood with grouches, those unhappy with the hardline approach, those who for any reason were unhappy with the Barisan Nasional, to try to sneak past the road blocks. The crackdown is what made that rally iconic.”
In effect, Bersih, also known as the coalition for free and fair elections, is thus looking for the same kind of reaction from the government. Earlier, it appeared they weren’t going to get it. Hishamuddin Hussein, the minister for home affairs, said earlier that the rally hadn’t apparently caught fire like the previous one, that it was not a security threat and “has little traction with the people"
“But by not giving them the permit, and knowing that these guys will go ahead and do the sit-in anyway, the city has again ignited the fuse which will make even ordinary people turn up for the protest,” the businessman said.
Apparently, anger has already been rising because thugs apparently linked to UMNO roughed up student demonstrators at the same location Thursday.
“I don’t understand it actually – it looks like the authorities want to turn public opinion against themselves,” the businessman said. Public opinion could also be affected by a demand by Pertubuhan Pribumi Perkasa Malaysia, or Perkasa, a Malay supremacy NGO closely linked to UMNO, to be given a police permit to rally at 9:30 am on the same day at Dataran Merdeka, allegedly to defend the country’s monarchy.
Ibrahim Ali, Perkasa’s firebrand leader, has repeatedly threatened violence against opposition figures over so-called ketuanan Melayu, translated roughly as Malays first, or ethnic Malay primacy in government and society.
Bersih’s steering committee was notified of the decision to ban the sit-in Friday morning. Steering committee member Maria Chin Abdullah told local reporters the city said the event is not suitable to be held at the Independence Square, which is to be used only for events of “national level" such as celebrations.
"We regret to inform that your application cannot be approved as the activity intended is unsuitable to be used in Dataran Merdeka as stipulated by the (the city), the letter said. “Only national level events are allowed at the Dataran like the National Day celebration and Federal Territories Day."
Responding to the rejection, Ambiga Sreenavasan, former head of the Malaysian Bar Council and one of Bersih’s leaders, told local reporters she was “not surprised” and that the sit-in will proceed as scheduled.
She added that the coalition will not appeal the decision, and that it will continue with preparations including dealing with police who have asked the NGO to come in to fill in some forms.
“If there are any obstructions (by city officials) on the day, we will negotiate with them,” she said.
Bersih is organizing the event after charging that the government and the Election Commission refused to implement the coalition's eight demands to clean up what they regard as practices designed to thwart the opposition’s chances for a fair election.
Himpunan Hijau, a protest group seeking to stop the operation of an Australia-owned rare-earths processing plant in based in Kuantan on the east coast, is expected to join the Bersih rally. The opposition has made stopping the plant a major campaign issue. Himpunan Hijau held a rally attended by thousands in Kuantan earlier this year.
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New Protest Rally Planned in Malaysia |
April 10, 2012, WSJ, Celine Fernandez and Shibani Mahtani
 - Bersih 3.0
- An activist in Bersih’s signature yellow t-shirts poses for a promotional picture on the group’s Facebook page
Last July, Malaysian activists –collectively known as the Bersih 2.0 movement– brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of Kuala Lumpur, demanding electoral transparency.
With the country’s next general election widely expected to be held this year or early next, activists are planning another rally scheduled for the end of this month, continuing their push for free and fair elections.
The “sit down” protest is planned for April 28, with Bersih (“clean” in Malay) to show the activists’ dissatisfaction with what they say is a lack of commitment by the government to implement measures for free and fair elections. Although the government is considering new rules to reform election processes in the country, the activists say the ideas floated so far don’t go far enough. The activists’ demands –ranging from the establishment of an independent body to help clean up the electoral roll and inviting election observers to monitor the vote– falls short of calling for a boycott of the upcoming election, which must be held in or before 2013, even if their aspirations are not met.
However, the decision to call a fresh rally does raise the heat on the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak as he tries to build momentum for what he hopes will be a successful re-election. Last year’s rally was more than just a quiet sit-down, turning messy after police fired tear gas and water cannons on protestors, including prominent leaders of the country’s opposition parties. Many people were injured and some 1,600 people were detained, including Bersih’s co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan. All were subsequently released, but human rights groups including Amnesty International condemned the action as the “worst campaign of repression we’ve seen in the country for years.”
Organizers of this year’s rally do not envisage a repeat of last year’s crackdown, given how unpopular the police action was. “I am assuming that sensible advisors of the Prime Minister will tell him to refrain from using the same tactic,” said Ms. Sreenevasan at a press conference announcing the rally.
After last year’s rally, an opinion poll by independent research firm Merdeka Center showed Prime Minister Najib Razak’s popularity dipping to 59% in August, compared to 65% in May. It has since bounced back to 69%, according to Merdeka Center. The rally is not for a couple of weeks, but already political leaders are warning Malaysians away from the event, arguing that the choice of location –Dataran Merdeka, the historic square where the flag of an independent Malaya was raised for the first time– is illegal.
Government minister in charge of legal matters Nazri Aziz said in Parliament last Wednesday that the square had not been gazetted as an area where assembly is allowed. Other government officials have been quoted in local press as saying the activists need not bother holding a protest because the government is already responding to their concerns.
Organizers insist the rally will go on as planned unless they get a commitment from the government that their reforms will be implemented before the next general election. After last year’s rally, Mr. Najib announced the establishment of a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to look into electoral reform. The committee included five members of the governing coalition, three from the opposition and one independent member. The committee drew up 22 recommendations around electoral procedures – including that the electoral roll only list eligible voters, and that election bodies function independently of the government.
Last Tuesday, their report was adopted by Parliament without debate, though the government is not obliged to implement any of the recommendations. The country’s Election Commission will discuss the report’s 22 recommendations in a meeting next week. The report failed to address one of Bersih’s sticking points, though – international observers coming to Malaysia for the general election.
Countries across Southeast Asia, including Indonesia and Thailand, are open to international and domestic observers. Malaysia sent observers to Myanmar to monitor its most recent by-elections held earlier this month. Chair of the Election Commission Abdul Aziz Mohd Yosuf, speaking to the Wall Street Journal after the announcement of this month’s Bersih rally, said that the body would be in favor of both international and domestic observers for the upcoming election since electoral authorities “have nothing to hide in [their] election systems and processes.”
Analysts, however, say that for many Malaysians the rally is about more than just elections. They say it’s also about general dissatisfaction with the state of politics in the racially-fragmented Southeast Asian nation, including concerns over corruption.
“Bersih represents opposition [broadly], not just opposition parties. These are quite separate issues,” said Professor Shamsul Amri Baharuddin of the National University Malaysia, who labels the movement as a “third-force” in Malaysian politics. He and some other analysts have said the movement’s organizers have been too hasty in calling for a protest without first exhausting other means of settling the issues they are unhappy about. “On the street [action] alone invites a certain kind of negativity, and both sides become very defensive,” said Professor Shamsul. Ultimately, demonstration organizers say it is not up to them to decide how the rally will end.
“At the end of the day, the Najib administration and the police have to decide what kind of outcome they want. The last time they arrested 1667. This time, if [they] want to go that way again, I am sure many Malaysians will come forward and turn ourselves in and say ‘put us in’,” said Mr. Wong Chin Huat, a member of the Bersih 2.0 steering committee.
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