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Tuesday, August 9, 2011

A month after Bersih march, changes taking place


August 09, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 9 — The July 9 rally for electoral reform here has burst the myth that Muslim-majority Malaysia’s middle class is “too comfortable” to demonstrate dissent and that its citizens are too colour- and creed-conscious to work together, Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan said in remarks published a month after the Bersih march that was put down by the authorities.

Influential US daily the New York Times dubbed her Malaysia’s “new symbol of civil society’s dissent” in its story “A Reluctant Symbol for Electoral Reform in Malaysia” published today.

Ambiga (picture) told the New York Timesthat the protesters “exploded many myths” about Malaysians, such as the notion that people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds could not work together and that the middle class was “too comfortable to step up to the plate.”

The Bersih 2.0 rally saw thousands of Malaysians take to the streets in answer to the civil society movement, made up of 62 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), despite a city-wide clampdown by the police that ended with nearly 1,700 arrests.

According to Bersih 2.0’s estimates, 50,000 people rallied to its call for cleaner and more honest elections while police figures put the crowd at closer to 6,000.

The images of demonstrators being shot at with tear gas and chemical-laced water were recorded and transmitted around the world by international media agencies, which appear to have blemished the Najib administration’s global image and could jeopardise the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition’s showing in the next general election, widely expected to be called by year end.

The coalition of 13 political parties has been in power since independence 54 years ago.

The first chapter of Bersih, which kicked-off in 2007, has been credited with the BN losing its two-thirds control over Parliament for the first time in decades.

While Putrajaya maintains the July 9 rally and its organiser are illegal, Ambiga is hopeful the eight demands put forward by Bersih 2.0, including better access to state-controlled news agencies and indelible ink to prevent voter fraud, will be implemented sooner or later.

She told the NYT that the Election Commission (EC) had responded positively to Bersih 2.0, notably making it possible for more Malaysians abroad to vote, was an admission that there had been a problem of election fraud.

“People keep saying, ‘What next?’ but, quite frankly, I think the citizens have taken it upon themselves to organise things around the country using the yellow theme, the theme of democracy. What I think Bersih has achieved is the awakening,” NYT quoted Ambiga as saying.

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