'Spooked by democracy, BN tries scare tactics'

Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian has described the ruling coalition's media blitz accusing international pro-democracy organisations were out to destabilise the government through local NGOs as a case of "overt paranoia".

"This feeble and desperate attempt by the BN to pooh-pooh legitimate businesses, civil societies and organisations by insinuating that Malaysia is being secretly undermined by foreign countries is not only ridiculous but it shows how the BN is resorting to scare-mongering on an international scale.

"Such scare tactics in fact expose the BN for its fear of real democracy and even more importantly that it is seeing demons where none exist," he said in a statement yesterday.

Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia and and Umno-linked Berita Harian andNew Straits Times have yesterday splashed on their front pages that US-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other international organisations were funding local civil societies.

A similar report was also aired during prime-time on TV3 yesterday, suggesting that the foreign funding was intended for civil society groups to topple legitimate governments around the world and replace them with client proxies.

Contemptible claim

"The cheek of the BN to equate its governance and hanging on to power with being a 'legitimate government' is laughable and any right-minded citizen of Malaysia would see right through this contemptible claim," said Baru.

"I would like to remind (Prime Minister) Najib Abdul Razak that rigged elections that go unchecked, a judiciary that is manipulated, monopoly of ownership of the media to the point that there is no freedom of the press, repressive laws that instill fear in the populace, smear campaigns, unjustified police brutality, royal commissions that are prejudiced and now blatant scare-mongering, do not equate to a legitimate government."

He added that this was not the first time that the premier had engaged in fear mongering, claiming that Najib had last Saturday attempted to "frighten" Pekan constituents by suggesting that Malay survival was at stake if the BN loses in the next general election.

On May 4, Najib had also claimed that the April 28 protest for clean and fair election organised by electoral reform group Bersih was an attempt to topple the government.