JULY 4 — As July 9 looms closer, the administration of Malaysia’s
Premier Najib Abdul Razak feels itself more and more pushed into a
corner.
This coming Saturday threatens to be a day of reckoning for his
administration, which from the beginning preferred tweaking the system
to reforming the system. Now, two years after he took power from Prime
Minister Abdullah Badawi, another leader who failed to live up to his
own reformist image, he is running out of options.
At the same time, many of his countrymen have run out of patience.
Even those sitting on the fence had been hoping against hope that the
Barisan Nasional would be able to somehow reverse the degradation of
governance that the country has suffered since the days of Dr Mahathir
Mohamed.
A non-government organisation calling itself Bersih 2.0 is arranging a
huge demonstration in Kuala Lumpur on July 9 to demand electoral
reform. The first time such a rally happened was on November 10, 2007.
That had amazing results. An estimated 40,000 people took to the streets
wearing yellow to symbolise loyalty to the King, not the government.
A huge Hindu rights rally followed a few weeks later and the impetus
from these protests almost floored the Barisan Nasional government in
the general election that followed soon after.
Now with the many deliberate signals sent by Prime Minister Najib recently
that fresh elections might be around the corner, there is reason to
believe this second Bersih rally will hold great consequences for the
country’s democratic development. The government certainly believes so
and has been making arrests for offences such as wearing yellow T-shirts
and even the “hidden” wearing of the apparently seditious apparel.
Solidarity rallies in support of Bersih 2.0 are planned in Seoul,
Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, Osaka, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New
York and perhaps other places as well. In Kuala Lumpur, at least twice
the number of participants as before is expected to march for fairer
elections.
As before, a memorandum with eight demands will be handed to the
King. No demonstration permit has officially been sought by Bersih 2.0
or Perkasa, the right-wing Umno-supported group that will be carrying
out a counter demonstration.
Umno Youth, which under Mr Khairy Jamaluddin will also hold its own march on that day, has formally applied for a permit.
In what seems like a bad overreaction, Home Affairs Minister
Hishammuddin Hussein has banned Bersih and arrested members of the Parti
Socialis Malaysia while taking no action against Umno Youth and
Perkasa, despite threats of racial violence from the latter.
Perkasa’s eccentric leader, Mr Ibrahim Ali, has been issuing warnings
to Chinese about taking part in the demonstration. This makes little
sense since a large majority of the marchers are expected to be
followers of Parti Islam SeMalaysia.
In truth, the government’s unwillingness in recent months to charge
Mr Ibrahim with sedition or take the Umno newspaper Utusan Melayu to
task for making statements of this kind, has been a source of anger for
many.
Electoral fairness
To be sure, demanding electoral reforms has shown itself to be a
cogent way of mobilising Malaysians and increasing their political
involvement. There are different reasons for this.
First, a democracy’s credibility and efficacy depends on the
perceived fairness of the electoral system and Malaysia’s has not met
that for a long time now. This point is intuitively understood by the
common man and woman.
Second, electoral fairness is an issue that does not turn racial
easily and has therefore functioned well as a lightning rod for general
discontent.
Third, there have been many by-elections in Malaysia and these cannot
help but showcase official disregard for clean and fair elections.
What Prime Minister Najib should be learning from this is that his
barrage of reform terms — 1Malaysia, New Economic Model, Economic
Transformation Program or Government Transformation Program — suffers a
serious credibility problem. His coalition may not have lost much ground
but it has not gained any either, as the recent Sarawak state election
showed. Now in his third year as prime minister, his failure to be
decisive on reform is perceived as conscious policy, and not the result
of inexperience or bad advice.
His nemesis — Pakatan Rakyat, the opposition coalition — has survived
three impressive years and more and more Malaysians now believe that
elections can lead to change even when the dice are loaded in the
government’s favour. Should the demanded reforms be carried out, the
ruling Barisan Nasional would lose more ground in the next elections.
To conclude, the fourth and most important reason for civil society
to call for electoral reforms is that the demands are clearly sensible.
The fact that things are now coming to a head and the police are
making arrests with no credible legal grounds, shows the inefficacy of
parliamentary debate in Malaysia today and the government’s inability to
reverse the wave of dissension that has been growing since before the
first Bersih demonstration in 2007. — Today
* The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.
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