So what Bersih? BN still has majority 55-58% Malay support

Despite the apparent local furore and international splash that the recent Bersih 2.0 electoral reform rally is said to have created, a local pollster believes the event's immediate impact on Malaysians is practically negligible.

"There is no shift in any significant terms that we detected," Merdeka Centre director Ibrahim Suffian (right) told Malaysiakini in an exclusive interview yesterday.

He related how the polling firm's preliminary findings suggests that popular support levels have been more or less consistent, before and after the rally.

Ibrahim explained away any detected reduction in support for BN as "an insignificant reduction", caused by inflation fears or the perception of certain leaders.

"I think BN still commands the majority, especially among the Malays. About 55 to 58 percent."

As to whether the presence of up to 30,000 people at the event, with high numbers of youth, was an actual measure of support for electoral reform, he said this was only true for a small fraction of the population.

"At the event, yes, there may have been thousands of people, but when we do surveys we look at a wider population of the entire country," explained Ibrahim, when asked to analyse the impact of the July 9 rally staged by Bersih 2.0, a coalition of NGOs pushing for electoral reforms.

The government had outlawed the group and declared the rally illegal, cracking down hard on the people who took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur to take part in the rally.

Ibrahim argued that there were millions more Malaysians beyond the Klang Valley who have neither heard about Bersih nor cared about it.

The main reason for this, he contends, is the lack of access to alternative news for most Malaysians living outside the major cities.

The pollster related the response from the youth when they were asked about Bersih as part of a Merdeka Centre survey.

"I don't know; I heard they wanted to demonstrate or whatever; I don't care about politics;" were the common responses Ibrahim said he received.

'Bersih's real impact'

While dismissing the immediate splash of Bersih beyond the Klang Valley where it took place, Ibrahim did not entirely discount the ripples that the Bersih rally could continue to create.

"The real impact of Bersih was not on the day itself, just like in 2007 with Hindraf and the first Bersih.

"Activists will be activated, psychologically they will be boosted and they will do more things," he said.

Ibrahim pointed out that there were election problems and irregularities highlighted in the media or by NGOs or by other parties every day.

"This is by the design, but also because the interest is there, people want to talk about this. That is the net impact," he theorised.

Real activism, such as that galvanised by Bersih, he said, would further translate into votes and might manifest itself to influence the next general election.

- Malaysiakini