Malaysian Opposition Digs In

By Liz Gooch, New York Times

KUALA LUMPUR — Election reform advocates said Thursday they would proceed with a rally in a stadium here on Saturday, despite warnings from the authorities that such a gathering would be illegal.

Tensions have risen in this Southeast Asia nation in recent weeks, with the police arresting more than 200 people in connection with the planned rally, which is being organized by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, also known as Bersih, or “clean” in Malay. The coalition is made up of 62 nongovernmental organizations.

Opposition leaders, who strongly support the campaign for electoral changes, have predicted that the rally could attract about 300,000 people.

A street rally calling for similar changes in 2007, in which the police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters, was credited with helping the opposition make historic gains in the 2008 elections. The next election must be held by mid-2013, but there is speculation it could be held as early as this year.

Last Saturday, the government declared Bersih illegal, because it had not registered as an organization and was causing unrest among the public. Bersih countered that it was not a new organization, but rather an alliance of existing groups. Prime Minister Najib Razak then said the coalition could hold the rally, if it agreed to meet in a stadium, rather than on the streets as first planned.

After a rare mediation meeting Tuesday with the Malaysian king, Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin, Bersih organizers agreed to these terms. Now, however, the authorities have said that Bersih cannot proceed without a police permit, which normally would not be granted to a group that has been declared illegal.

Bersih leaders responded by accusing the prime minister of having “reneged” on his offer to provide a stadium for their rally and said they would assemble at Merdeka Stadium in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday afternoon “whatever happens between now and then.”

“We are coming, we will be peaceful and together, we will build a better Malaysia,” the coalition said in a statement.

On Thursday, the chairwoman of Bersih, Ambiga Sreenevasan, said the management of Merdeka Stadium had turned down the coalition’s request to use the site, but that it would reapply and try to secure a police permit under the name of one of its member groups.

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin accused Bersih of attempting to “incite hatred” by insisting on holding its rally at Merdeka Stadium, which he said should only be used for official functions, The Malaysian Insider, a Web site, reported Thursday.

Meanwhile, the police have set up roadblocks on streets leading into the city and said they would arrest anyone found with Bersih materials, such as the coalition’s yellow T-shirts.

In recent weeks, 225 people have been arrested in connection with the Bersih movement under various laws including the Sedition Act and Emergency Ordinance, which allows for detention without trial. On Thursday, the police said six people remained in custody.

Perkasa, a group formed after the 2008 elections to defend the rights of ethnic Malays, which it asserts are being eroded by non-Malays, is planning to hold a counter-rally against the Bersih movement and is seeking a police permit and a stadium. The United Malays National Organization’s youth wing said it had yet to decide whether to go ahead with a similar rally.

The Kuala Lumpur city police deputy chief, Amar Singh, said Thursday that the police had obtained court orders that bar 91 people, including leaders of Bersih, Perkasa and UMNO Youth, from certain parts of the capital between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Saturday.

Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy and democracy with regular national elections, but Bersih organizers say that elections are vulnerable to manipulation.

They have issued a list of eight demands, including marking voters with indelible ink to prevent them from voting more than once, purging electoral rolls of “phantom voters” and ensuring that opposition parties have equal access to the mainstream news media.

The group is also calling for a royal commission to investigate how elections are conducted.

Ms. Ambiga, the Bersih chairwoman, said the coalition wanted these changes implemented before the next election.

The Electoral Commission has announced that it will introduce biometric fingerprinting for voters, but she said that the commission’s recent announcement did not go “far enough.”

The coalition that has governed Malaysia since the nation gained independence in 1957, now under the name National Front, rejects accusations that elections have not been conducted freely and fairly and notes that the opposition won control of five states in the last national election.

Analysts say the Bersih campaign could help the political opposition.

“The opposition parties have jumped on this bandwagon because they would be direct beneficiaries of electoral reform,” said Ibrahim Suffian, director of the Merdeka Center, an independent polling firm in Kuala Lumpur.

Describing Bersih’s demands as “perfectly normal in terms of what’s expected in a functional democracy,” Mr. Ibrahim said that if large numbers of protesters turned out Saturday, it could slow the government’s momentum after a recent series of by-election victories.

“I think that is the deeper concern: that a show of protest, a show of force by the opposition and NGOs demanding reforms from the government, could sway undecided people to feel that the government is not doing enough,” he said.

Ong Kian Ming, a political analyst at UCSI University, said that the rally came at an “opportune time” for the opposition and that a violent crackdown on the protesters could be “a game changer” in the coming elections.