‘Malaysian Spring’ growing beyond Bangsar despite EC curbs, say residents

Bangsar Park residents plant ‘flowers’ at Bangsar Park. — Pictures by Emily DingKUALA LUMPUR, April 27 — The “Malaysian Spring” movement of little coloured flags has grown from a roundabout in middle-class Bangsar to nearby suburbs in the city to show support for some Election 2013 candidates despite the Election Commission (EC) frowning on the practise, say Bangsar residents.

Some 16,000 multicoloured mini flags, dubbed “flowers”, were planted inside the Jalan Tempinis roundabout in Lucky Garden on April 14, and adopted by PKR’s Nurul Izzah Anwar as part of her Lembah Pantai re-election campaign in the May 5 general election to prevent Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) officers from uprooting them.

But an EC enforcement team have told residents that the flags in other areas are not part of Nurul Izzah’s campaign and must be taken out, said Malaysian Spring founder and well-known landscape architect Ng Seksan.

“They said that they will write to us officially on Monday, but they have removed about 3,000 ‘flowers’ in Bandar Utama and another few thousand in Damansara Perdana last night,” Ng told The Malaysian Insider this morning.

He was with other residents in an effort to plant more flags in the Bangsar Park area, accompanied by Nurul Izzah’s husband Raja Ahmad Shahrir Iskandar. The flags can also be found in upscale neighbourhoods of Damansara Heights, Sri Hartamas and Taman Tun Dr Ismail in the neighbouring Segambut federal seat.

“They said that the flags on the roundabout are okay because it has been adopted by Nurul Izzah for her campaign, but the flags on the islands surrounding the roundabout and in other areas had to be removed,” he added.

He noted that he had not spoken to the EC or its staff personally, but had heard the news through Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) representative, Mohamad Affendi Abdul Ghaffar, on the EC enforcement team.

Simitha with a car sticker she is distributing in support of Nurul Izzah.In his words, Mohamad Affendi told The Malaysian Insider that the enforcement team had acted based on police reports made by Umno members in Taman Tun and Bangsar that the flags “disturb the eyes” and are an “obstruction of the road”.

He also said that the EC enforcement team for Lembah Pantai consists of three EC representatives, two DBKL officers, two police officers, one BN representative, one PR representative, and one independent representative.

Simitha Singam, a programme officer at the Centre of Independent Journalism (CIJ), said: “From what I understand, they are saying that the flags have nothing to do with any party. So Nurul Izzah has to expressly adopt all of the areas that have flags or they have to have the PR logo on them.”

Ng also said that upon hearing the news last night, some residents immediately removed the flags from the traffic islands surrounding the Lucky Garden roundabout.

“It was a knee-jerk reaction. We didn’t want to cause any trouble for Nurul because they had also threatened to forfeit her deposit. So until we discuss it properly with her, we didn’t want to cause any trouble,” he said, referring to the sum of money a political candidate must pay for the right to stand for election.

However, Ng said that residents will replant the uprooted flowers in Bandar Utama tomorrow.

“As far as we are concerned we are going to keep planting because I think this is our right. A lot of us are apolitical. What we’re planting for is hope and the betterment of Malaysia. There is no organisation that is totally rakyat-driven and resident-driven. So our attitude is we’ll just plant. If they remove them, we’ll plant again,” he said.

Fahmi Fadzil, Nurul Izzah’s political secretary, told The Malaysian Insider that she had only specifically adopted the Lucky Garden roundabout “spring” in her letter to the Kuala Lumpur mayor Datuk Seri Ahmad Phesal Talib on April 15.

“We hadn’t known it was going to be bigger than that,” he said, adding that Nurul Izzah would now have to list out every single area where “flowers” are being planted and officially adopt all of them as part of her re-election campaign so that they can exist.

He also said he would propose that all opposition candidates for the May 5 general election co-opt all “Malaysian Spring” efforts in their constituencies during the campaign period so that the flags would not be uprooted.

When contacted, EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof told The Malaysian Insider that he had no comment.

“I don’t know about Malaysian Spring flags,” he said, in a text message.

EC deputy chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar could not be reached for comment.

The head of the EC’s Lembah Pantai enforcement team also declined to comment when contacted by phone.

EC public relations officer Sabri Said told The Malaysian Insider that he could not comment on the matter because he was not on the ground, but that enforcement teams have the power to remove any party regalia that they deem to violate the rules.

In another residents’ initiative, Simitha has also created 1,000 light-blue car stickers for distribution that read, “Keep Calm & Vote Izzah”, with the help of donations from the community.

“My reasoning behind this is that there’s no way we can fight the Barisan Nasional (BN) flags. They print it and they put it everywhere. There’s no way we can compete with them, even our little flags are taken out,” she said.

Nurul Izzah is up against Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing Minister Raja Datuk Nong Chik Zainal Abidin and independent candidate Rusli Baba in a three-cornered fight for the hot seat of Lembah Pantai.