I am not a supporter of the BERSIH’s yellow march yesterday (Nov 10) despite its great success (as claimed by the organisers).
I applaud the protesters’ spirit to convey their thoughts;
I condemn police’s action to use tear gas and water cannons on the protesters;
I hope that the Election Commission (EC) could be more independent;
I wish that the flaws in our electoral system could be minimized.
So why am I still not a supporter of the BERSIH rally?
EC is not our main concern
EC might be favouring our BN government in policies and having double standards when implementing certain things, but I still believe that we have a decent electoral system.
I doubt that there is any election in the world that is 100% clean, and I believe that our election is not that bad.
The main reason for BN’s dominance in the 2004 election is not the unfairness in election or the flaws in EC… it’s because we don’t have a strong enough opposition party (or alliance).
The opposition parties need to buck up their reputation, attract more quality members, and think of a way to form a strong alliance against the current BN government.
One thing that the BN government managed to do well all these years is to keep their alliances intact… it shows that Malaysians can work together regardless of occasional controversies. That is something that the oppositions are far from emulating.
The BERSIH march is a good lead to show bonding among opposition parties… work on it.
The involvement of political parties
It’s irony that both the success and failure of the rally are caused by the involvement of political parties.
Without them BERSIH would not have attracted such a large crowd; but their participation has made the rally a political driven protest instead of independent voices.
We may argue that BERSIH is formed by just 5 political parties and dozens of other NGOs… but fact is the political parties’ involvement will always grab the attention instead.
Read this, the headlines from Reuters’ reports…
Malaysia police move to foil opposition rally
Malaysia police use water cannon at Anwar rallyAnd here is an excerpt from AFP…
“Some 30,000 protesters eventually massed outside Malaysia’s royal palace, led by opposition leaders including dissident former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, as they faced off against hundreds of riot police.”
We don’t need our biased local press to mislead the mass; even the independent news source would perceive that it’s an opposition rally… and I’m afraid that most bystanders would think of the same thing too.
It’s ok if the political parties take part in this kind of rally, but their leaders need to back off from taking the spotlight. Let the NGOs handle the case instead, it shows more credibility ahead of political agenda.
Just a simple challenge to BERSIH supporters… name me 3 non political organizations that took part in the BERSIH rally. I apologize in advance if you managed to name it straight away without references… I doubt that I would need to apologize to most of the protesters though.
Would BERSIH boycott the election?
Would BERSIH move on to boycott the election if their demands are not granted?
If they chose not to boycott the coming election… it shows that BERSIH still have faith with our electoral system ain’t so? If that’s the case, why started the rally at the first place?