Behind Umno's fear of Bersih: Malays catching the T-shirt revolution

Finally, the top UMNO leadership is beginning to let slip why it is resisting the July 9 Bersih 2.0 free-fair-elections rally with such extraordinary vehemence.

"From the beginning to the end, it was always about preventing a political tsunami like what happened in Egypt and Tunisia from being repeated amongst the Malay middle ground," Kuala Krai MP Hatta Ramli toldMalaysia Chronicle.

"They have tried to make the rally a fight between the Najib administration and the urban non-Malays, the Pakatan Rakyat and the NGOs. But actually, what they fear is the sense of reform surging through the Malay electorate."

Indeed, as another PAS leader Nizar Jamaluddin has pointed out, overall sales of the Bersih2.0 T-shirt has been soaring despite the threats and multiple arrests of those caught promoting the rally, leafleting or even wearing the T-shirt.

"It is RM6mil and climbing, due to illegal ruling of its possession, purchase and wearing by Hisham!," Nizar said in reference to Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein whose decision to outlaw the yellow, round-necked Bersih tee made the foreign headlines, raising eyebrows far and near.

Unhinged response from the UMNO elite

Malaysians have been taken aback by the unexpectedly harsh action from Prime Minister Najib Razak, who a day ago warned that the police had been given the power to proclaim Emergency rule if the Bersih rally went through.

Indeed, the UMNO elite have been very concerned since the PAS annual congress earlier this month, when the Islamist party flatly rejected its overtures for a merger.

The election of a new team of 'centred' professionals to take over from the previously hardline right-wing Ulamak (or Islamic scholars) faction signalled the end of UMNO's dominance over the Malay middle ground.

For decades, many of the young and professional Malays chose UMNO over PAS because of its liberal policies as compared with PAS, which began by taking a fundamentalist stance. But as UMNO became corrupted with its huge power over the decades, PAS has slowly but surely drifted leftwards.

"It is this that it trying very hard to protect," said Hatta.

"So when PAS said it would 100,000 members, it was worried. When Mat Sabu (the newly appointed deputy president) raised the number to 300,000, the UMNO elite got scared. When PAS president Hadi Awang called on all one-million members to attend, I think Najib fainted. UMNO panicked, they are very scared now. At the end of the day, it is for the Malays themselves to choose. They don't owe UMNO a living or life-long support."

Malays don't owe UMNO life-long support

Bersih is a coalition of the country;s top 62 NGOs. It plans to march to the Palace to deliver a memomrandum containing 8 election reforms to the King, demanding that the BN implements these before the next general election, widely expected to be held soon.

Experts and leaders of other faiths have called on the Najib administration to cede ground, engage with Bersih and agree to at least some of the reforms which are actually very easy to manage, such as the use of indelible ink and a clean-up of the electoral rolls. Najib has refused, sparking claims that he knew BN could not win without cheating.

At the back of the tussle, Pakatan leaders have been warning that what worried the UMNO most was the risk that a wave of social reform consciousness might be sparked off by the rally. Hundreds of thousands have been expected to attend.

It remains to be seen if the police will make the "preventive arrests" that Hisham has promised. But as regional experts and even pro-establishment civil society leaders have pointed out, Najib and BN havce lost.

Many expect the fallout from the rally and the BN's crude pre-emptive moves to go underground, and spring up in the ballot boxes - triggering the first sort of Arab Spring in Southeast Asia, where most of the nations are controlled by dictatorships or near totalitarian governments.

Special sermon

With just a week to go to the rally, mosques throughout Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya were treated to a special Friday sermon that demonised the Bersih rally and its organisers as "extremists".

And at an Islamic law convention held later in the afternoon, Prime Minister Najib Razak himself cranked out the rhetoric, urging lawyers not to attend the rally.

“Lawyers who are professional do not need to get involved in street demonstrations because we are a sovereign nation with laws and a constitution,” Najib told the convention, adding in the carrot that a Syariah Bar Council would be formed.

But he attracted ridicule and criticism that he was the "last person" to advise the legal profession, given that his government had arrested some 115 people in Bersih-related activities using questionable ways.

As for the sermon read in 150 mosques, it said the Bersih rally threatened harmony, accusing the organisers of trying to “replicate” the unrest in other countries and overthrow the BN.

“We fear that this movement is being led by extremists who call themselves the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections… in essence this group fights for individuals or specific interests without a care for the sensitivities of the masses or public interest," the sermon entitled Prserving the blessings of peace read.

“To achieve its goal, these people will engage in street protests, illegal assemblies, they move to gather numbers to create violence, to destroy public property, break the country’s laws and are even willing to hurt the authorities assigned to maintain peace. The actions of these traitors are evil and it is forbidden for Muslims to take part (in the Bersih rally) because this can result in hardship, anxiety and destruction of society."

But it cut no ground with the Islamist PAS. Other Muslim clerics including the influential Dr Asri Zainul Abidin had praised the motives of Bersih, describing its goals for free and fair elections as "noble".

"It is a joke the way they make such a big production out of it, but the fact remains - the principles and concepts of Bersih is part of the faith. Ask any Ustaz," said Hatta.

- Malaysia Chronicle