‘Perkasa rally called off to avoid clash among Malays’
(Yahoo News/Malaysiakini) – Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali claimed that he had called off the July 9 rally to counter the Bersih 2.0 march at the last minute in order to avoid a clash among the Malays.
He said he issued an instruction for the Perkasa supporters to stand down about 90 minutes before they were to join the rally at the Titiwangsa lake garden at 2.30pm that Saturday.
The decision was made by the Perkasa leadership after he sent 50 inflitrators, who pretended to be Bersih 2.0 supporters, to monitor the situation on the ground in Kuala Lumpur that day.
“They told me that they (the Bersih 2.0 marchers) were all Malays. The Chinese only (made up) a small number, only one or two percent, and the Indians were also not that many.
“I asked ‘where are (DAP leaders) Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng’, they said ‘not there’. Then I asked who else were there? They said (PKR de facto leader) Anwar (Ibrahim) and (PAS president) Abdul Hadi Awang,” Ibrahim added.
“Had we gathered, we would not be able to stop the crowd from marching, then there will be loggerheads among the Malays,” the politician told Internet TV station eTV in an exclusive interview last week. The recording was aired on Tuesday.
Ibrahim said two other reasons lead to his “bold decision” to call off the rally – the decree issued by the Agong and another by the Selangor sultan against street demonstrations, as well as his intention not to divert the police’s effort in dealing with the Bersih 2.0 rally.
“So taking into consideration the decrees by the Agong and the sultan, taking into account (the interests of) all Malays and taking into account the focus of the police force in controlling Bersih, I made the bold decision not to have the gathering. I called off the gathering at 1pm.
“If I went on that day, (we could have) easily (mobilised) 3,000 people. When I called it off, there were already 300 Perkasa members at Titiwangsa,” he said.
