Rainbow rally lifts opposition in
Malaysia By Anil Netto
KUALA LUMPUR - In a run-up to highly
anticipated national elections, an estimated
100,000 people supporting the political opposition
thronged Merdeka Stadium in the national capital
for a rally organizers referred to as a "people's
uprising".
Signaling a potential shift in
government tack, unlike previous rallies where the
call had been for reform of election rules and
procedures, the event was not suppressed by
security officials.
The rally was laden
with historical symbolism, with opposition
politicians likening their campaign to unseat the
ruling United Malays Nasional Organization (UMNO),
which has held power with coalition partners since
independence from colonial rule in 1957, to the
country's break from its colonial masters. Opposition
leader Anwar Ibrahim bellowed
"Merdeka", or independence, exactly seven times
during the mass gathering.
His rally cries
harkened to Malaysia's first prime minister Tunku
Abdul Rahman's seven emotional chants during the
official handover ceremony from British rule on
August 31, 1957, at the same stadium, which was
constructed specially for the announcement of
Independence.
Never before had authorities
allowed the opposition to stage a rally at the
historic venue, though previous attempts had been
made. The stadium, like Dataran Merdeka, or
Independence Square, had always been off-limits
for all but officially sanctioned events.
A Bersih 3.0 rally calling for free and
fair elections held last April was violently
suppressed by police, many of them without
official identification tags. Police conduct
during that suppression operation has been the
focus of an ongoing inquiry by the Human Rights
Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam). Security
officials cracked down similarly on Bersih rallies
in 2007 and 2011.
Whether the change in
tack in police management of the rally was part of
a government strategy to validate the upcoming
polls is still hard to gauge. Elections must be
called by April and held by June of this year and
are expected to be the most hotly contested ever
in Malaysia. Many analysts now expect snap
elections to be held in March.
UMNO has
ruled the country consecutively since
independence, but its ruling Barisan Nasional (BN)
coalition lost its coveted two-thirds majority in
parliament at the 2008 polls. Heavy-handed police
action against a Bersih rally calling for
electoral reforms and a rally organized by Indian
Malaysians, both held in November 2007, is
believed to have contributed to significant
electoral reverses for the ruling coalition.
BN leaders say that the government's
softer, non-confrontational approach to the rally
is due to the success of the government's
transformation plan and the new Peaceful Assembly
Act 2012, which does not require permits but lays
down many restrictions for such rallies, including
a ban on children below the age of 12 attending.
BN supporters had a field day on the
micro-blogging site Twitter attaching photographs
of what they claimed were children accompanying
their parents to the rally.
The weekend
rally was different in significant ways from last
year's suppressed Bersih rally. While the Bersih
rally was organized by a civil society coalition
of mostly independent groups, the "people's
uprising", or #KL112, rally was largely organized
by opposition parties, though Bersih supporters in
their trademark yellow shirts also participated.
The stadium was bathed in a rainbow of
colors as people wore T-shirts of various hues
representing an assortment of grassroots causes
and movements. Apart from the yellow of Bersih,
there were participants garbed in the green shirts
of the Himpunan Hijau (Green Gathering) and
opponents of a government-backed, rare-earth
refinery built by the Lynas Corporation.
The red shirts of the Abolish Internal
Security Act movement (about two dozen ISA
detainees are still incarcerated despite the Act
being repealed), the violet shirts of a women's
group protesting against violence against women
and the orange shirts of those concerned about
what is happening to the state-run Federal Land
Development Authority (Felda) also highlighted the
range of those who turned out. Even animal rights
activists rallied under the opposition's banner.
Leaders of the major opposition parties -
Anwar's People's Justice Party (PKR), the
Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the Islamic
party PAS - turned up along with their respective
supporters, the largest band of whom were from
PAS, whose members and their maroon-shirted Unit
Amal (Community Welfare Unit) turned up in large
numbers.
A common thread among these
various groups is the aspiration for change - a
break from the entrenched corruption, cronyism and
top-down development strategies that disregard the
environment and ordinary people's livelihoods
widely associated with decades of UMNO-led rule.
Hundreds of billions of ringgit in illicit
money have reportedly flowed out of the country
over the last decade and the feeling among many of
Malaysians is that the country cannot afford
another five-year term of unaccountable BN rule.
While the economy has performed well amid global
economic turmoil, there are medium term questions
about economic direction with depleting oil
reserves and stagnant industrial competitiveness.
Some said the large turnout at #KL112
reflects a repudiation of all that former premier
Mahathir Mohamad represented. Though he stepped
down in 2003, Mahathir continues to exert
influence through his writings and public
statements that back the UMNO-led status quo.
Many see the problems plaguing Malaysian
society - crony-driven privatizations, systemic
corruption and the undermining of democratic
institutions - as rooted in his 22-year
administration and perpetuated by his UMNO
successors Abdullah Badawi and incumbent Najib
Razak.
Against the inclusive rainbow
spectrum gathered at the Merdeka Stadium, the
ruling BN and its race-based nationalist group
supporters look decidedly exclusive. Despite
Najib's "1Malaysia" unity rhetoric, his coalition
continues to use race and religion to appeal to
UMNO's traditional ethnic Malay supporters and its
ethnic Chinese and Indian sister parties.
As if to illustrate the contrast with the
opposition's rainbow opposition rally, Najib
addressed a mono-ethnic group of Indian Malaysians
elsewhere in Kuala Lumpur while the Merdeka
Stadium event was taking place. The turnout at
Najib's event was estimated by the UMNO-linked New
Straits Times newspaper at 15,000.
While
public support for UMNO's sister parties
representing minority ethnic groups appears to
have waned, Najib is obviously hoping that his
personal popularity with be enough to carry the BN
to a simple majority at the coming election.
Political fallout from an apparently corrupt
French submarine procurement deal, linked perhaps
to the murder of a Mongolian woman associated to
one of Najib's aides, appears to be troubling the
administration.
While pro-opposition
sentiment may be strong in urban areas, it is
difficult to gauge to what extent rural
Malaysians, cut off from alternative news sources
on the Internet and relying heavily on
pro-government media, will switch sides to the
opposition.
In some areas like the
southern state of Johor, traditionally a BN
stronghold, there are already signs of a slight
swing in support towards the opposition. Whether
similar shifts are taking place in rural areas in
the countries other 12 states is still unclear.
But as the weekend's wide umbrella rally
indicated, the opposition's aspiration of
capturing federal power no longer seems like an
impossible dream.
Anil Netto is
a Penang-based writer.
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