BERSIH, the catalyst for change

Umno’s worst fear, the eroding of their popular support among the Malay masses, something unthinkable for the megalomaniacs is now becoming a reality with all its wrong strategies and  moves. In their quest to reform and win back the lost support they are shooting their own legs. Just as a person under duress is incapable of making rational decisions, measures, policies and purported reforms which were put in place after their electoral defeat in the Mar 2008 elections only aggravated the pace of the entrapment into their own quagmire, sinking in slowly but surely. The tainted legacy of the electoral process, which has become the norm of the ruling BN to win elections with discreet and illegal means with the complicity of the Election Commission has persisted even after repeated pleading, cajoling, demonstration and litigation. Call for electoral reform which has been going on for umpteen years, has fallen on deaf ears, but the people who have lost all avenue to bring changes has now are compelled to bring their dissatisfaction to the streets. A government which has nothing to hide regarding the gerrymandering of elections would not be in a state of delusion and phobia ever since BERSIH announced its intention for the rally.

Every action unfolding now are the typical desperate attempts of failed nation in the brink of collapse. The long waited arrest and prosecution of the ‘Datuk T’ trio, concluded with great fanfare, and given wide coverage by the Main Stream Media. Criminals were treated like folk heroes. This is the first time in the our legal history of the country that a pornographic video clip produced as an exhibit in court has been played on two big screens, one facing the magistrate and the other the public gallery. And to quote the legal Jargon, veteran Law Maker YB Karpal Singh, “it was not an ingredient of the offence for the identity of the actor to be proven”. This circus in the court was timed to give the maximum impact to humiliate and disparage DSAI Anwar and derail the popularity of the BERSIH Rally which he supports.  This proves the extent BN can go to exploit and to usurp the sanctity of Judiciary to bend and to suite their political agenda.

The desperation of the police in stopping Ceramahs ( gatherings) in support of BERSIH, the preemptive arrests for distributing flyers and wearing T shirts with BERSIH colors, and detaining bus load of people for campaigning for BERSIH and intending to charge them Under Section 122 of the Penal Code which reads,  “Whoever collects or attempts to collect men, arms or ammunition, or otherwise prepares to wage war with the intention of either waging or being prepared to wage war against the Yang Di Pertuan Agong or any of the Rulers or the Yang Di Pertua Negeri or abets the waging or the preparation of such war, shall be punished with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term not exceeding twenty years, and shall also be liable to fine.”  Has made the police departments look like clowns, dancing to the tune of their political masters.

But to the chagrin of the nation Ibrahim Ali the sub contractor of dirty works of Umno, has coolly been protected for all his threat to Chinese community, his daily expounding of racialism and fanatism and despising Ambiga Sreenivasan, stomping and burning of the pictures of the chairperson of BERSIH The selective persecution, and the immunity enjoyed by the Pasir Mas independent MP, smacks of the worst putrid despicable abuse of our Institution of law and order.

The governments megalomania, delusion and jittery in taking every conceivable effort to derail the BERSIH Rally has definitely misfired, creating a rage and groundswell of support among the wide spectrum of the people. May be in the desperation to stop the BERSIH rally, the Government is promoting it with all its misplaced strategies. Best wishes for BERSIH

Note:

BERSIH is the acronym in Malay for the coalition of NGO’s for the independence of the Electoral Process

Yang DI Pertuan Agong: His Highness the King of Malaysia