Post Bersih 3.0 – The paradox of Najib’s boon to Pakatan

ARCHIVES 2012

By admin-s On May 4, 2012

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The questions to ask now are not about the success of Bersih 3.0 (that’s already indisputable), nor that of the horrendous police brutality (regardless of any misinformed ‘pay-back’ mental madness), nor about Najib, Hishamuddin and UMNO’s culpability (they will pay for it in GE-13), but about the correct person to take over.

Ktemoc Konsiders

The fallout from Bersih 3.0 produced many issues. The most obvious has been what I wrote on Tuesday 01 May 2012 in the first section of my post Destroying Bersih’s success, where I saluted the fantastic success of Bersih and the organizational qualities and leadership of Ambiga Sreenevasan and her Bersih colleagues as:

… a brilliant beckoning and beautifully conceived and executed Bersih 3.0 with such powerful and undeniable presence of public support to show the King and Malaysians that the demand for ‘clean & fair’ elections was supported DIRECTLY by 300,000 Malaysians in KL alone and many more overseas plus a multitude who weren’t able to attend …

And in an earlier post, prior to Bersih 3.0’s Day, I posted in Bersih wins war before battle is fought just precisely what the title said, that:

Thanks to headlines such as (Malaysiakini’s) Police get court order, Dataran off-limits for 4 days, Bersih 3.0 ‘now a security issue’, says KL mayor and DBKL moves in to enforce Dataran lockdown, every Malaysian will now be more attentive to the actions and messages of Bersih, regardless of whether the protest rally occupies Dataran Merdeka. Bersih has already achieved its aim, winning the war even before the battle has started.

The second issue evoked the opposite to my feelings of acclamation and admiration above for Ambiga and her Bersih colleagues. I was horrified at the unfettered brutality of Malaysia’s uniformed thugs, the Brown Blue Shirts. I said:

There is no denying that the Malaysian police went feral and metamorphosed into samsengs of the most brutal kind, not unlike the Argentinean police of that nation’s Dirty War (1976 – 1983). It’s terrible that a public funded force, instituted to ‘serve & protect’ the public, instead turned against the very people it vowed to ‘serve & protect’. The ferocity with which they hunted down innocents to bash them up as some kind of misinformed ‘pay back’ mental madness shows how wrong the governance of this nation has become. Supposedly professionals became suppressive predators. How do we remedy such a dysfunctional evil force since the UMNO-led government has refused to?

The combination of above – an awakened political awareness by a significant percentage of our rakyat that the election process is not halal, in fact unbelievably haram, because it’s controlled by a political party, and the extent to which that political party would go to ensuring the election process continues to remain haram for the corrupt benefit of its elite membership, even unto harming the Malaysian Rakyat – will, nay, have already damaged Najib severely and the election prospects of BN politicians in the coming general election.

But these are Najib’s concerns and problems to resolve. Pakatan has by default become the benefactor of Najib’s fear of the rakyat’s expressed concerns about the haram election process and their white-hot anger at the government’s (thus ruling party’s) violent reaction to the rakyat’s demands for a ‘clean and fair’ election.

One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that the above arguments are shared by many, if not all in Pakatan, but therein in this fortuitous boon to Pakatan’s prospects in the next general election, with Putrajaya at stake, is a paradox, best represented by two troubling questions arise. These questions cannot be argued away as ‘something to be resolved’ when Pakatan wins majority rule.

If one desires great authority one has equally great responsibility to stand up and be counted or, in this case, show one’s hands to the voters in a transparent and accountable fashion. Otherwise, one would be no different to the BN and its practice of sinister scheming subterfuge.

To persist in that attitude of obdurately refusing to deal with the two important questions, then I dare say Pakatan will NOT be deserving of the people’s trust for them to officially occupy Putrajaya because it would then show Pakatan lacks the openness, will or courage to deal with difficult issues, and thus the capacity to be the alternative government.

As I mentioned above, the questions to ask now are not about the success of Bersih 3.0 (that’s already indisputable), nor that of the horrendous police brutality (regardless of any misinformed ‘pay-back’ mental madness), nor about Najib, Hishamuddin and UMNO’s culpability (they will pay for it in GE-13), but about the correct person to take over.