I am done with the Bersih2 illegal rally stories

Updated 19 July 2011


Here is some info - the ‘real‘ numbers of supporters for Bersih on July 9th is now down to about 2000 plus only. I know the pro Bersih and ‘anti Melayu’ folks will not like to read this but here is some info I received. Read more here by Blogger Tuan Syed: Bersih And Nat Geo.


Original Post


The Bersih2 illegal rally has come and gone leaving a trail of excuses, allegations and counter allegations. Much has been written about Bersih2 which started with noble intentions i.e asking the SPR to ensure a Free and Fair Election which in my opinion is a fair request in itself. But somehow along the way Bersih2 was hijacked by Anwar Ibrahim and the Pakatan gang and the slogan for Free and Fair election were reduced to the tired Opposition call for Change in Gomen and Reformasi etc.


Bro Jebat Must Die wrote a brilliant piece on Bersih2 - Bersih2 for Dummies which should be made reference material for the future:


excerpts from Bersih2 for Dummies:


Bersih’s call for FREE AND FAIR ELECTION is summarised in the following 8 points:


1. Clean the electoral roll


The electoral roll is marred with irregularities such as deceased persons and multiple persons registered under a single address or non-existent addresses. The electoral roll must be revised and updated to wipe out these ‘phantom voters’. The rakyat have a right to an electoral roll that is an accurate reflection of the voting population.


In the longer term, BERSIH 2.0 also calls for the EC to implement an automated voter registration system upon eligibility to reduce irregularities.


2. Reform postal ballot


The current postal ballot system must be reformed to ensure that all citizens of Malaysia are able to exercise their right to vote. Postal ballot should not only be open for all Malaysian citizens living abroad, but also for those within the country who cannot be physically present in their voting constituency on polling day. Police, military and civil servants too must vote normally like other voters if not on duty on polling day.


The postal ballot system must be transparent. Party agents should be allowed to monitor the entire process of postal voting.


3. Use of indelible ink


Indelible ink must be used in all elections. It is a simple, affordable and effective solution in preventing voter fraud. In 2007, the EC decided to implement the use of indelible ink. However, in the final days leading up to the 12th General Elections, the EC decided to withdraw the use of indelible ink citing legal reasons and rumours of sabotage.


BERSIH 2.0 demands for indelible ink to be used for all the upcoming elections. Failure to do so will lead to the inevitable conclusion that there is an intention to allow voter fraud.


4. Minimum 21 days campaign period


The EC should stipulate a campaign period of not less than 21 days. A longer campaign period would allow voters more time to gather information and deliberate on their choices. It will also allow candidates more time to disseminate information to rural areas. The first national elections in 1955 under the British Colonial Government had a campaign period of 42 days but the campaign period for 12th GE in 2008 was a mere 8 days.


5. Free and fair access to media


It is no secret that the Malaysian mainstream media fails to practice proportionate, fair and objective reporting for political parties of all divide. BERSIH 2.0 calls on the EC to press for all media agencies, especially state-funded media agencies such as Radio and Television Malaysia (RTM) and Bernama to allocate proportionate and objective coverage for all potlical parties.


6. Strengthen public institutions


Public institutions must act independently and impartially in upholding the rule of law and democracy. Public institutions such as the Judiciary, Attorney-General, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC), Police and the EC must be reformed to act independently, uphold laws and protect human rights.


In particular, the EC must perform its constitutional duty to act independently and impartially so as to enjoy public confidence. The EC cannot continue to claim that they have no power to act, as the law provides for sufficient powers to institute a credible electoral system.


7. Stop corruption


Corruption is a disease that has infected every aspect of Malaysian life. BERSIH 2.0 and the rakyat demand for an end to all forms of corruption. Current efforts to eradicate corruption are mere tokens to appease public grouses. We demand that serious action is taken against ALL allegations of corruption, including vote buying.


8. Stop dirty politics


Malaysians are tired of dirty politics that has been the main feature of the Malaysian political arena. We demand for all political parties and politicians to put an end to gutter politics. As citizens and voters, we are not interested in gutter politics; we are interested in policies that affect the nation.
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Nevertheless, EC’s feedback on the 8 points presented above are as below.


1. Clean the electoral roll


One of the major concerned of BERSIH is the existence of deceased persons in the list of Malaysian voters. Since people die everyday, it is impossible to update the list on real-time basis as it is required by law that the next of kin of the deceased person to personally contact the EC to notify of the death. The EC do not, and can not have the authority to automatically wipe out the names without a formal notification by the next of kin.


Imagine if the election is today. There will still be names of dead people in the list because there are people that just died yesterday.


EC’s own improvement initiative is to continuously, and expeditiously clean the electoral list immediately after being informed of any deaths.


Another point of contention is the existence of irregularities whereby there are people registered under different address or multiple persons registered under single address.


This had also been improved by the EC when changes to the Act was made in 2002. From thereon, your place of voting is determined by your address in the IC.


The irregularities existed because previously, political parties, through agents, can register their members without the members knowing it. Hence, your voting address will be determined by the person registering it for you.


Plus, in the period before 21st century, most places in Malaysia do not have individual address to a specific home. Most mail/letters that were sent to rural or semi rural areas were sent to one specific spot and collected by the people on daily basis. These spots were mostly, some ‘kedai kopi’ in the villages, post offices, house of the village head etc.


Most people at that time have ICs that indicate addresses which have only the name of the area they live in. This was way before postcodes were invented. By the way, postcodes were only introduced in the late 80s.


Due to this predicament, the problem of specific addresses in the ICs would spill over to the problems of voters’ address in the electoral roll.


However, this was rectified in 2002 whereby voting address will have to be the same with the address appearing in your IC. Voters can at anytime check their voting status and place to vote online with the EC at www.spr.gov.my and is encourage to report to them should there be any discrepancies.


Another problem is implementation of automatic voter registration system.


It actually means, once you reach 21, you are automatically be registered by the EC to vote.


In the highly rigid Singapore, it is MANDATORY to vote. Any citizens who did not vote will be penalised by the government.


Malaysia is different in a way she gives you the democratic right of NOT to vote. As an extension, she is giving you the right not to register as a voter as well. People have the right to vote or not to vote. And this is enshrined in our Constitution. You can actually sue the EC and demand why have you been automatically registered when the Constitution does not say so?


BERSIH’s demand seemed to take away this right. EC has the view that, even though voting is very important responsibility of a Malaysian, they must be given the right not to discharge it.


Thus, the EC do not agree with this point. However, they continuously implement awareness programs to ensure that people would know the importance of registering as a voter. They are aware that if the have to impose automatic registration, the Constitution must be amended first before they can actually implement it.


2. Reform postal ballot


BERSIH has this idea that all Malaysian citizens should vote within the SAME DAY.


Due to the illogical manner and the improbability of this to happen, the EC have only to a certain extent, implement some of the changes to improve the postal ballot.


Police, military and other security forces which made up about 200,000 voters cannot vote on the same day with the rest of us due to the fact that they have to be on high alert during election day. If all military and police personnel go out to polling centres, then obviously there will be no proper security to guard our country at that time.


Imagine if all the policemen and the army queuing up for hours on election day. Who shall look after the streets and our borders?


That is why, these people will vote few days earlier than the rest of us. This is called postal voting because the voting process is done at their police or army posts. Recently, the EC had changed the name of postal voting to ‘advance voting’. The process is still the same where you queue up, show your identification, your name will be crossed out, you receive your ballot papers to tick the candidate you choose and the ballot paper will be then slipped into a transparent box. All this will be done under the watchful eye of political parties’ agents.


The votes will then be counted on the same day. No mailing of the votes involved. Perhaps that is why there was a misperception. Just because the process is called ‘postal vote’, people thought the votes will be mailed somewhere else which gave rise to the perception that it could be abused.


3. Use of indelible ink


With regards to indelible ink, it is used among countries which have no IC, such as Africa and India. It is a very low-tech approach. It is as if everyone else is using Twitter or Google+ but BERSIH still wants you to use Friendster.


The countries in Africa or even India have not reached our level yet. We only have 12 million voters. Why should we turn our system backwards when we have reached this level of technological advancement? The reason there is a push for the use of indelible ink is due to fear of double-voting, but we have an adequate system to handle voter identification and it is nearly impossible for people to register twice.


Everyone has one IC number and one identification card. This is the ultimate control system that is used to register and identify the voters. Ever heard of anyone with two ICs? No you have not.


However, to ensure even more security and to improve on voters identification, the EC is seriously considering the biometric system. This is the thumbprint scan very similar to the ones you use in the airport when your passport is scanned.


Another big risk of the indelible ink is the potential abuse. What would stop anybody from going around in rural areas with the same indelible ink and tricks some unsuspecting old grandma into using that ink BEFORE polling day? Come voting day, she will not be allowed to vote by the officers at poll centre because her finger has already been marked. It is against the Constitution to disallowed a registered voter to vote and the grandma can sue the EC for turning her away.


Hence, biometric is the way of the future because let’s face it, everyone has thumbprints.


4. Minimum 21 days campaign period


Longer campaign period is the norm in big countries with a lot of population such as Indonesia and Thailand. We simply cannot compare our country with others that have longer campaigning days. Look at how big the number of voters is in countries such as Indonesia or Thailand.


The EC has the jurisdiction to determine the number of campaign days that they see fit. Remember, the longer the campaign period, the bigger costs are involved to manage the whole election period. More resources such as police and EC officers have to be on duty. This will take a toll in the EC expenses and ultimately, the tax payers will have to pay for these incrementals.


The shortest campaign period was 8 days in the general election of 2008 while the longest was 42 days (more than one month!) back in pre-Merdeka days of 1955. Naturally, back in those days, there were no internet or TV to quickly disseminate your political manifestos. Hence, the longer campaign period for the politicians to go around the country. How things have changed.


5. Free and fair access to media


BERSIH’s whole idea of existence is to negotiate the demands with the EC. However, this particular demand is beyond EC’s jurisdiction because they do not control the media such as Malaysian Insider, Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today, Harakah Daily Utusan Malaysia, New Straits Times and The Star.


Therefore, this demand is invalid and irrelevant.


6. Strengthen public institutions


This is also not in the purview of the EC as they are not the bosses of the Judiciary, Attorney-General, MACC and the police. There is also no law for the EC to instruct any of these institutions. In other words, the EC is indeed have no power to ‘strengthen’ public institutions.


Therefore, it is simply illogical for BERSIH to make this demand in the first place. The parliament is the correct platform to do this.


7. Stop corruption


Just like point number 5 and 6 above, stopping corruption is not the responsibility of the EC. BERSIH cannot demand the EC to end all forms of corruption because simply put, eradicating corruption is not just the duty of the EC but also the duty of all Malaysians.


The Election Commission cannot be expected to apprehend people that are bribing policemen or catching some dishonest businessman who just inflated the price of his project.


Vote buying instances have been documented to be practised by both sides of the divide and those instances have been brought to courts. Again, it is not the EC’s duty to preside over fraudulent cases. That should be the matter of the courts.


8. Stop dirty politics


Perhaps the best way to stop dirty politics is for the politicians within the government and the opposition to practise a more ethical campaigning methods.


This is certainly not under the jurisdiction of the EC.
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Results and accomplishments:


1. The BERSIH organisers achieved their objective in mobilising thousands of people to gather illegally in the streets of Kuala Lumpur that day.


2. The BERSIH organisers failed to hand over the memorandum to the King TWICE.


3. Pakatan Rakyat succeeded in hijacking BERSIH’s call of ‘free’ and ‘fair elections’ and morphed it into ‘bring down the government’ and ‘reformasi’.


4. Pakatan Rakyat succeeded in painting a bad light to the government.


5. Government succeeded in giving itself a bad name.


6. Police managed to curb the demonstrations within 3 hours.


7. BERSIH managed to hoodwink the Malaysian public that the free and fair election tagline was actually not a really fair tagline.


8. Malaysia managed to be in the international media because somebody is sad that the EC will not put a permanent ink on your finger.

Read in Full here.

This is what  the UK malaysianspectator said about Bersih2:

Ask for support at the ballot box, not at demonstrations

After the small but intensely partisan demonstration in Kuala Lumpur recently, it has become apparent that Malaysia’s Bersih movement has been co-opted by the country’s opposition parties for their own electoral ends. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Malaysians sat out Saturday’s protests in a substantial indication of support for the reforms embraced by the ruling coalition under the leadership of Prime Minister Najib.

That a seemingly ‘independent’ protest movement has become a wholly owned subsidiary of an opposition political party is a reflection of trends seen in both the United States and the United Kingdom. In the U.S., labor unions and their allies have staged often violent demonstrations with the excuse that they are trying to protect their bargaining rights. In reality, the unions were attempting to discredit conservative Republican governors and get their leftist stooges back into power.

Similar tactics have been employed by British trade unions which have made a number of threats to disrupt the country’s transport infrastructure and other public services, in protest at the Coalition Government’s principled and necessary austerity measures. London transport works even threatened to strike on the day of the royal wedding between HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton, which showed a callous disregard for ordinary Britons trying to enjoy a national celebration. Protests organized by the National Union of Students in London earlier this year shamed the entire country as images were broadcast internationally of protestors climbing the Cenotaph—a monument honoring Britain’s war dead—and swinging off the hallowed structure.

The same is, of course, true in Malaysia where Bersih has become a political pawn for the opposition movement. This is little more than Anwar Ibrahim continuing his calculated strategy of employing a smoke-and-mirrors strategy to distract from not only his personal shortcomings, but also the electoral strength of the BN coalition government.

Bersih estimates of Saturday’s protests numbered 50,000, but this is a comically inflated figure. Independent calculations put the actual size closer to 10,000, which is even less impressive when you consider the 6,000 people who turned out at a moment’s notice the following day at a peaceful rally commissioned by Prime Minister Najib. He rightly noted that BN could have dwarfed the Bersih rally had they chose to do so, but the Prime Minister’s intention was not to match Bersih in numbers—but to make a peaceful show of strength that divisive disruption is not in the best interests of the country.

Political parties should ask people to show their support at the ballot box rather than via attention-grabbing demonstrations. However, that is hard for Anwar and Bersih since there is clearly a strong consensus among the voting public that BN’s economic reforms have Malaysia on the fast track to prosperity—an agenda which they will continue to rally behind. But these are not the people rioting in the streets; they are however, the people who will be turning out in droves to support the Najib agenda in 2012.

At the end I must say that SPR should have engaged the Bersih2 organisers in a more public way, means having a forum about their demands on TV where the general public will see both coming out with their questions and answers. SPR must engage with the public more and certainly making personal unwarranted statements against Bersih Organisers is wrong. 


The Gomen also need to be decisive when dealing with people who are prepared to rally illegally in defiance of the Polis for their cause. The Government should either allow the rally with Polis permit OR not allow the rally and swiftly arrest all Bersih2 demo organisers and masterminds if they refuse to stand down. Decisive action designed to keep the peace and security of this nation will always be supported by Majority peace loving Malaysian.


Lastly a lie exposed as usual (the man's got a knack for being exposed):

And this pathetic lie: