PROTES.....File
photo of Perkasa members protesting against Ambiga.
KUALA LUMPUR : A ruling
party politician suggests that an electoral reform activist should be hanged.
Mock funeral rites are held outside the home of an opposition state leader.
Eggs and rocks rain down on a political rally.
Malaysia is no stranger to
political mud-slinging and scandal. But a ratcheting-up of inflammatory
language and violence — much of it directed at the political opposition — has
shocked even seasoned observers as the country heads for its most contentious
and closest election by next April.
“I worry that the election
will be the dirtiest. All indications also point to the most violent,” said Lim
Guan Eng, the chief minister of Penang and a leading figure in the opposition.
Members of Perkasa, a group
that champions ethnic Malay rights and has links to the ruling party, placed a
flower garland around a photo of Lim outside his home in May, a funeral ritual
that his supporters said was akin to a death threat.
The rising political
temperature coincides with signs that the ruling coalition, in power since
independence in 1957, will struggle to improve on its poor electoral
performance in 2008. That showing, which deprived the Barisan Nasional
coalition of a two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time, handed
five state governments to the opposition and led to the ouster of then Prime
Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
A source in the dominant
Umno told Reuters that recent internal polling showed the coalition faced an
uphill battle to win back its two-thirds share and was even at risk of losing
its simple majority.
The polls showed the
coalition risked losing more states and faced a closer-than-expected race in
Johor — long an Umno bastion — due to waning support from ethnic Chinese.
“That will be a slap in the
face. So this is why there is a delay in the elections,” said the senior Umno
source.
Polls by the independent
Merdeka Center show that while Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak enjoys
strong approval ratings around 65 per cent, his coalition is much less popular
— polling at around 48 per cent. Najib has put off calling the election, which
must be held by next April, showing his apparent wavering confidence in
improving on 2008’s performance.
Ambiga has hired a bodyguard
and installed security cameras around her Kuala Lumpur home after receiving
death threats.
“Umno knows their hold on
power is not a given,” said Ooi Kee Beng, deputy director of the Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. “Perhaps for the first time since 1969,
there’s a chance change may actually happen so you would expect more desperate
moves.”
The Southeast Asian country
was traumatised by race riots in 1969 following strong election gains by ethnic
Chinese. The troubles gave birth to its current system of economic privileges
for majority ethnic Malays over Chinese and Indian minorities.
“Relentless” Hate Speech
The opposition filed a
police report against Umno lawmaker Mohamad Aziz after he asked in Parliament
last month whether leading electoral reform campaigner Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan
should be hanged for treason. The lawmaker retracted his remark two days, but
was not censored by the party leadership.
Ambiga, a recipient of an
International Woman of Courage award from the United States, says she has
received death threats. She has hired a bodyguard and installed security
cameras around her Kuala Lumpur home.
The ethnic Indian has faced
calls for her citizenship to be revoked and even been labelled the
“anti-Christ” by the right-wing Perkasa group.
“The hate speech has been
relentless,” said Ambiga. “The leadership could have made a difference but they
don’t bother. I’m very disappointed.”
After Ambiga led thousands
of protesters through Kuala Lumpur in April to demand electoral reforms, dozens
of former soldiers and market traders camped outside her house to protest what
they said was a loss of earnings from the demonstration.
Some performed “exercises”
that involved pointing their buttocks towards her house as they bent over.
Those close to Najib
describe him as gentleman who has no taste for gutter politics. But the
opposition says his failure to speak out more firmly against incidents of
violence and intimidation has encouraged extremists.
After the “hanging” comment
in Parliament, he reminded coalition MPs not to make statements that hurt the
feelings of other races or other component parties within the coalition.
Asked on Thursday about the
allegations of political intimidation, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin
Hussein told reporters: “It is very real. This year we are living in a very
politically charged climate.”
The opposition’s Lim, who
spent 18 months from 1986 detained under the now-repealed Internal Security Act
and another year in prison for sedition, said the policy had gone beyond “tacit
approval.”
“The acts are supported and
condoned by Barisan Nasional,” said Lim, who has complained of several other
acts of physical intimidation against him in recent months.
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim,
the opposition’s leader who was jailed for six years on sodomy and graft
charges he says were trumped-up, blamed Umno for an incident in February when a
group of youths threw stones at his car in Johor.
His daughter, opposition MP
Nurul Izzah Anwar, said a rally in her constituency in May was attacked by men
throwing rocks, water bottles and eggs, resulting in several injuries. It was
one of several opposition rallies that have been disrupted, sometimes
violently, in recent months.
It is unclear who was behind
the attacks, but opposition leaders complain the police have failed to arrest
perpetrators or quickly respond to the violence. (Reuters)
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