BERSIH 4.0: Winds of Reform in Malaysia?
An analysis of the BERSIH 4.0 movement in Malaysia demanding the resignation of PM Najib Razak and the possibility of a reform wave in the neighboring country.
By: Muhammad Ihsan Harahap
The year 2015 has been quite turbulent for Malaysia. At the beginning of the year, on February 10, 2015, the Federal Court rejected the appeal of Anwar Ibrahim, leader of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition, and sent him to prison with a five-year sentence on sodomy charges brought against him. The verdict drew condemnation from around the world, with comments that the verdict was politically motivated, including from Human Rights Watch (HRW), which called the sentence a form of torture. Amnesty International stated that the verdict was a threat to freedom of expression.
On August 10, 2015, coinciding with Anwar Ibrahim's birthday, at least 40 world figures and intellectuals sent a letter demanding his release from prison. From government circles, figures such as B.J. Habibie, Al Gore, and Rached Ghannouchi were among those who echoed the demand. Meanwhile, intellectuals were well represented by names such as Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ramadan, Francis Fukuyama, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, Slavoj Zizek, Karen Armstrong, John L. Esposito, and others.
BERSIH 4.0
Before the echoes of protest against the Malaysian government over demands for Anwar's release had even subsided, at the end of August, Malaysia was once again enlivened by a movement calling itself "BERSIH." Its demands were clear and sharp: calling for the resignation of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.
This demand originated from a report published in The Wall Street Journal revealing that a sum of 700 million US dollars had entered Prime Minister Najib's personal account. The BERSIH movement suspected these funds were connected to the 1MDB (1 Malaysia Development Berhad) project. Nevertheless, according to MACC (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission), the funds came from a donor in the Middle East whose identity had not yet been identified.
The demonstration, held in the Dataran Merdeka area of Kuala Lumpur, took place from August 29 to 30, 2015. At least 100,000 people flooded the Dataran Merdeka area in Kuala Lumpur over two days. The demonstrators held their ground until the morning of August 31, 2015, coinciding with Malaysia's Independence Day, now in its 57th year. The demonstration was attended by at least 100,000 people, even though the Malaysian Police declared the BERSIH 4.0 rally an illegal action.
This was not the first demonstration organized by BERSIH. This year's demonstration, named "BERSIH 4.0," was the fourth such movement. Previous movements were held in 2007, 2011, and 2012, with various demands. Some of the demands put forward during BERSIH 4.0 included: clean elections, clean government, the right to dissent, strengthening parliamentary democracy, and saving the economy.
The person behind the BERSIH 4.0 movement was Maria Chin Abdullah (58), wife of the late activist Yunus Ali, who had previously also led the BERSIH movement.
Mahathir Mohamad
Prime Minister Najib commented on the demonstration by saying the protesters lacked nationalism and were making baseless accusations.
A surprising turn of events occurred on the first day of the BERSIH 4.0 demonstration. Unexpectedly, Mahathir Mohamad -- none other than the former Prime Minister of Malaysia and former senior figure in UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) -- visited the demonstrators along with his wife, Siti Hasmah Ali, at around 7:30 PM local time.
Mahathir's presence was naturally surprising to many, given that the parties within the opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat also supported and endorsed the BERSIH 4.0 movement. Meanwhile, UMNO, the government-supporting coalition that Mahathir once led, clearly did not support the BERSIH 4.0 movement.
On the second day, Mahathir Mohamad truly joined the demonstrators and delivered a short speech. Because of this speech, it was reported that Mahathir was summoned by police for questioning on charges of defaming the government.
Winds of Reform?
By September 1, 2015, conditions in Malaysia had returned to normal. However, a movement like BERSIH 4.0 cannot simply be ignored by the Malaysian government. The movement's success in uniting all major ethnic groups in Malaysia (Malay, Chinese, Indian) is evidence of Malaysian society's dissatisfaction with the government under Prime Minister Najib. Moreover, world figures and intellectuals had just demanded Anwar Ibrahim's release from prison, where, according to them, the sodomy case was nothing more than a politically motivated accusation. If we look closely, the conditions facing the Malaysian government today are almost identical to those faced by former President Suharto during the 1998 Reform movement.
Amid the threat of a more severe economic crisis, issues of freedom of speech and political expression, the declining popularity of the Malaysian government and public trust, as well as the impact of the BERSIH 4.0 movement and the interrogation of seven senior figures of this movement, we are entitled to ask: are these the signs of winds of reform in Malaysia?
The author is the Chairman of KAMMI at the Hasanuddin University Commissariat, Makassar, and also a Monitoring Officer for the South Sulawesi region at the Indonesian Interfaith Weather Station (IIWS). The author studies History at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Hasanuddin University. His writings have been published in various media, including The Jakarta Post, Tribun Timur, Muhammadiyah Studies, Jurnal KAMMI Kultural, and others.
This article was published by the Tribun Timur daily newspaper (Gramedia Group), September 5, 2015 edition.