Utusan: Bersih is Pakatan’s bid to spark Middle East-style protests

ARCHIVES 2011

By admin-s On Jun 19, 2011

(TMI) The opposition will use next month’s Bersih 2.0 rally to trigger an uprising similar to the popular protests which toppled Egypt’s Mubarak regime and now threatens governments in Libya, Syria and Yemen, Utusan Malaysia said in its Sunday edition today

Its Mingguan Malaysia weekend edition said those who intend to mass in the capital on July 9 to demand electoral reform have lost faith in democracy after realising they cannot win federal power through the ballot box.

“Peace is no longer important to them. They want only to seize power and install their leader as Malaysia’s prime minister using whatever means possible,” the Umno-owned daily said in its Maulana Arrif column.

“The enemies of Islam, both humans and syaitan-syaitan (devils), are working to aid them,” it added.

The column appeared to follow Umno deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s comments that Pakatan Rakyat (PR) will use the Bersih rally to capture Putrajaya from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN).

But Bersih 2.0 said it is marching to demand for electoral reforms, including a minimum 21-day election campaign period that was practised until the 1969 elections. A race riot after the polls caused the government to impose a state of emergency and stop lengthy campaign periods. A typical campaign period now is nine days.

The columnist also used an allegory inspired by a passage in the Sahih Muslim hadith about goats to describe the devotion shown by PAS supporters to the party leadership and opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

“The female goats first slavishly followed the male goats with white hair on their heads and beards… Suddenly there appeared in front of them a male goat with thick black hair on his head,” he wrote.

“The male goat was good with words and spoke like the goats in countries with four seasons… And so they followed the male goat with black hair.”

The column went on to say that the black-haired male goat – who nearly became leader of all animals before being ejected into the wilderness — believed it was his God-given right to be ruler and would use any trick in the book to achieve this goal.