Miti in damage control over Bersih, says Mukhriz

Mukhriz said the Bersih rally has made his ministry’s task more challenging. — file pic

KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — The government is being forced to counter the negative international coverage of the crackdown on Saturday’s Bersih rally while trying to convince investors that the country still has much to offer, said Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir today.


The deputy minister of international trade and industry also said that most of the effort the ministry will put in to overcome any investor doubts will end up largely benefiting Pakatan Rakyat controlled states.
“The negative coverage will most definitely affect sentiment toward Malaysia,” said Mukhriz in a press conference today.

“The irony of it is that Miti and Mida (Malaysian Industrial Development Authority) will have to step up efforts to control the damage and most of the benefit will accrue to opposition states such as Selangor, Penang and Kedah.”

Putrajaya drew negative global press over its handling of Bersih. — file pic

He added, “They (opposition parties) do such a thing and damage our reputation and our government has to do fire-fighting to attract investment.”


The deputy minister said that one of the main features that attracted investors to Malaysia was political stability, and rued that it was “unfortunate” his ministry will now have to rely on other “features” in its bid to promote the country.

“The main question we receive is whether this (the street rally) is a common occurrence,” he said. “Although it was a hiccup last Saturday, we tell investors that it happens only very rarely.”

However, Mukhriz said that no investors have yet pulled out because of the coverage on the Bersih rally last Saturday.

Thousands took to the capital’s streets on Saturday to march for free and fair elections but chaos broke out close to midday when police in full riot gear moved to disperse the crowd by firing tear gas canisters and spraying jets of chemical-laced water on protestors.

International coverage of the street rally was largely negative, with influential media such as Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal writing scathing editorials on the government’s crackdown of the gathering that also involved arrests of over 1,000 civilians, creating the spectre of a potential global backlash against the Malaysian government.

The media in the UK, where Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is on a four-day official visit, has also been highly critical of the government’s handling of the street rally for electoral reforms, with a column in the widely read Guardian newspaper even suggesting that Najib is inviting comparisons to Egypt’s disgraced and recently deposed former president Hosni Mubarak.