Plight of Bersih plight of the people

Steve Oh, CPIasia

The cry for free and fair elections resounds throughout the country and around the globe and will not cease until the integrity of the electoral process is achieved.

Former Finance Minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has recently lamented the country’s regressive ways and calling for people to reclaim their rights. In the light of current events his words seem prophetic.

In an article in Free Malaysia Today he spoke of, among other things, “the loss of generational responsibility” and the need to “reverse the centralization of power and to restore the check and balance of a genuine democracy”.

Tengku Razaleigh speaks the language of democracy and though his critics write off his role in politics as ‘inconsequential’ his ideas often strike a chord with contemporary Malaysians in articulating for the truth and justice and simple common sense.

I don’t think anyone is too young or too old to say and do something important to change his or her country. Tengku Razaleigh may be a veteran politician but he and his ideas are still vitally relevant.

The truth, however, is that Malaysia has never been a genuine democracy and even at the best of times, it was a ‘guided democracy’. Still in the country’s formative years the standard of politics had not descended to today’s abysmal level.

The innocuous civil liberty group Bersih prescribed eight remedies for an ailing electoral system. But instead of being thanked it only received a hostile response from the establishment. It suffered the persecution that befalls all good citizens who try to rid their nation of anomalies that undermine democracy.

As I have written before democracy is still illusory in Malaysia.

If democracy existed the Bersih event would not have been necessary or demonized. The electoral system would not be riddled with the faults that a group like Bersih seeks to redress.

Not all votes equal

Gerrymandering and malapportionment where electoral boundaries are unfairly skewed to protect the incumbent government means the ballot box can never be relied on to deliver the results that the people want.

Elections are a farce when one electorate with only a fraction of the number of voters in another electorate constitutes the same value as one parliamentary seat. It results in a waste of the people’s votes and an erosion of democracy. Thus gerrymandering will always ensure the incumbent government wins despite not having the majority of popular votes.

The role of Bersih in helping to enhance the electoral system should not be treated with disrespect, and the verbal assaults and threats of physical harm against its members are unwarranted and despicable.

If any government is afraid of fair rules and a level electoral playing field in a purported democracy then it must feel very insecure about its own popularity and will resort to perpetuate itself by hook or by crook.

Bersih should not be daunted in its determination to restore the integrity and fairness of the electoral system. It should demand for inclusion in any exercise to properly delineate the electoral boundaries. Countries like the UK and Canada already have non-partisan groups involved in re-drawing and updating electoral boundaries.

Democracy is still illusory besides the flawed electoral process if the government continues to gratuitously curb legitimate forms of expression and resorts to using proxy groups, dirty tricks and the police to stifle peaceful civic activism.

The frenzy by government-controlled media to defame the Bersih organizers through untruthful reporting and reports of discovery of weapons and subversive materials belonging to the Bersih group do nothing to detract us from the focus on the faulty electoral system.

The plight of Bersih is the plight of the people.

The day of reckoning is merely postponed and delayed for any government that has lost the ability to govern upon the merits of its policies and abilities, lost the people’s trust and resorts to strong-arm measures to contain the increasing public discontent.

When a government punishes its citizens who do good and rewards those who do bad then you know the country will soon go to the dogs.

A government in liability is a danger to a country’s peace, progress and long-term viability and if it persists in wrongdoing becomes it own worst enemy, and will be the architect of its own demise.

‘Bersih, cekap dan amanah’

The ‘mandate of Heaven’ is divine and the mandate of the people is synonymous with the mandate of good governance obtained in the light of a free and fair ballot box but corruption is the usurpation of power done in the darkness of conspiracy and a police state where power is abused and the rule of law bastardized.

The challenge for civil society is to keep the pressure on the government to perform in accordance with the highest standards of the country’s much publicized values such as enshrined in the Rukunegara and other slogans including that much-hyped but little-achieved ‘clean, efficient and trustworthy’ spin.

The challenge for the incumbent government is to stay above corruption and to realize that all that public protestations are not about disloyalty or trouble-making or even politicking for the opposition but a genuine desire to see good governance in the country. It has often called for the people to make the sacrifices, perhaps it is time for the government to make its own sacrifices. I should not have to obviate the obvious.

What’s disloyal about wanting a good government and a good country?

Challenges

The challenge for the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as the titular head of the country is to ensure that the politicians all play fair and square and uphold the highest moral standards and respect the constitution. His influence is only after all persuasive because the country’s constitution determines the rights and responsibilities of all citizens including the Agong and those in government, but it is a significant influence.

The supreme authority in the state however is the country’s enshrined constitution. No one is higher than the constitution except God who ordains good governance and will remove those who do evil. Even if one does not believe in God, one should still accept the evidence of history.

As Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi desperately tries to negotiate a way out of his predicament, young Libyans in rebel-controlled areas are learning English and all the hallmarks of democracy and good governance. There is no future for despotic governments and Malaysia is no exception.

The lawbreakers and real traitors are those who do not uphold the provisions of the constitution. They are the ones disloyal to king and country, and the real enemies of the state.

The Bersih phenomenon is the tip of the iceberg of reforms needed to purge the nation of the evils that threaten to destroy it as a truly democratic and progressive nation. Already corruption has rendered society a morally decrepit state

No citizen can be accused of being disloyal who merely wants to do his duty in serving his or her country and taking part in an activity of last resort like the peaceful Bersih walk.

The government should come to its senses and act with greater maturity and fairness now that the Bersih leaders have agreed to abort the street rally on July 9. The ban on Bersih organizers and politicians from entering certain areas in the city does nothing to help the situation except harden the resolve of the unfairly treated.

The police should release all those it has arrested and not further harass them with groundless charges that the public knows are unfair and unconstitutional.