Thousands in Malaysia vote protest

[TommyThayer]

Malaysia opposition holds protest at vote result

9 May 2013 Last updated at 03:34 GMT

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Thousands of Malaysian opposition supporters have rallied against alleged fraud in the election, defying police who said the protest was illegal.

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim called the protest after what he said were "stolen" polls, won by PM Najib Razak's ruling coalition.

Mr Najib's Barisan Nasional (BN or National Front) coalition won 133 of the 222 parliamentary seats on Sunday.

 

[TommyThayer]

Anwar Vows Battle Over Lost Malaysia Vote as Thousands Rally

By Ranjeetha Pakiam & Manirajan Ramasamy - May 9, 2013 8:20 AM GMT+0800

Malaysia opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim vowed to contest 30 seats lost in a May 5 election, enough to swing the result, in a speech to a packed stadium outside of Kuala Lumpur last night.

Police said about 60,000 opposition supporters attended the rally in Selangor state, defying threats of arrest and heavy rains. The crowd blew horns, chanted “ubah” -- or “change” - - and wore black T-shirts with “050513” to mark the date of the poll won by Prime Minister Najib Razak’s coalition, which lost a majority of the popular vote for the first time in 44 years amid a record 85 percent turnout.

“We will continue this struggle and we will never surrender,” Anwar told his supporters. “This is merely the beginning of the battle between the rakyat and an illegitimate, corrupt and arrogant government,” he said, using the Malay word for “people.”

The protest could heighten tensions as Anwar seeks momentum for his claims the election was rigged after his alliance ended up with 44 fewer seats than Najib’s 13-party Barisan Nasional group even as it won more total votes. Malaysia’s benchmark stock index fell yesterday after gains in the two sessions immediately following the vote.

“We call on all Malaysians to come forward to share their experiences and help us get to the truth,” Lim Kit Siang, founder of the opposition Democratic Action Party, the biggest in Anwar’s alliance, told the rally, according to a transcript. “A victory that is earned through money, lies and manipulation is not a victory at all.”
Contesting Seats

Lim, whose majority ethnic Chinese party expanded its seat take, said the opposition will contest results in at least 30 seats where it alleges electoral fraud occurred. Anwar repeated the claim.

The Election Commission has said the process ran smoothly. Candidates have 21 days to file petitions challenging results, commission Chairman Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof told Radio24 yesterday, state-run Bernama news service reported. After that, a judge can void the result if fraud occurred and a by-election would be called, he was quoted as saying.
Rafizi Ramli, strategic director for Anwar’s People’s Justice Party, said as many as 80,000 people showed up last night in and outside the stadium, which he said has a capacity of about half that size. Traffic was at a standstill in surrounding streets.

Selangor police chief Tun Hisan Tun Hamzah said he estimated the crowd at about 60,000 people in a text message. Earlier yesterday he warned that arrests could be made because the protest violated the Peaceful Assembly Act. No security forces blocked people from attending.

Worst Showing

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index (FBMKLCI), which has risen a total of 4.7 percent since the election, fell 0.2 percent yesterday. The ringgit strengthened as much as 0.6 percent to 2.9625 against the dollar, bringing its total gains since the poll to 2.3 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Najib’s coalition won 133 of 222 parliamentary seats, its worst showing in 13 straight election wins since Malaysia gained independence from Britain in 1957. It won 47 percent of all votes for parliamentary seats in an election with a record turnout, compared with 51 percent for Anwar’s coalition, Election Commission data showed.

Anwar cited the total vote tally in a statement two days ago disputing the outcome and accusing the Election Commission of “being complicit in the worst electoral fraud in our nation’s history.”

‘Free, Fair’

The election was “free and fair” and Anwar’s rally was “calculated to create unrest,” Najib’s office said in a statement yesterday. It also rejected parts of a report released by the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, a group accredited by the Election Commission to observe the vote, saying it “strays far outside the original mandate.”

The group, known as IDEAS, said yesterday the election was “only partially free and not fair.” While the campaign period proceeded “without any major glitches,” wider issues such as media bias and unequal constituency sizes gave an advantage to Najib’s coalition.

“There is this big issue of delineation” of electoral districts, said Ramon Navaratnam, chairman of the Centre for Public Policy Studies, which released the report together with IDEAS. “You can make all the improvements, but if that structural fundamental issue is not resolved, it’s always going to be regarded as an unfair electoral process.”

‘Chinese Tsunami’

Anwar, a former finance minister and a member of Najib’s party until his ouster in 1998, struggled to swing voters in government strongholds where his own Malay ethnic group is dominant. Najib attributed his loss in Selangor, where the opposition took 17 of 22 seats, to a “Chinese tsunami” against the government.

Ethnic Chinese make up about a quarter of Malaysia’s 29 million people, while about 60 percent are Malays and indigenous groups together known as Bumiputera, or “sons of the soil.” The opposition rejected Najib’s analysis of the election outcome in racial terms, a sensitive topic in a country where hundreds were killed in Sino-Malay riots in 1969.

“It serves no good purpose, but only self-interest, to speak of and emphasize the election results along racial lines,” Christopher Leong, president of the Malaysian Bar Council, said in a statement today. “Spewing venom and spreading discord must not be the Malaysian way.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Ranjeetha Pakiam in Kuala Lumpur at [email protected]; Manirajan Ramasamy in Kuala Lumpur at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at [email protected]

 

[TommyThayer]

Thousands rally against Malaysia vote result

Losing candidate Anwar Ibrahim leads rally against what he says was "unprecedented electoral fraud" in Sunday's poll.

Last Modified: 08 May 2013 16:35
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Tens of thousands of Malaysians, dressed in black, have gathered to denounce the country's elections which they claim were marred by fraud by the coalition that has ruled for 56 years.

Malaysia's opposition leader is leading demonstrations against alleged electoral fraud in Sunday's election.

"I'm here to support democracy. I feel the election is so unfair and there are so many dirty tricks"

- Tan Han Hui, university student

Anwar Ibrahim, head of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, or People's Pact, called for support from people after he lost the race to become prime minister

The gathering of at least 50,000 people according to AP news agency was being held in a stadium outside the capital Kuala Lumpur, with protesters spilling out of the stands and onto the football field.

Ibrahim addressed the crowd, thanking them for their support.

He said he was grateful to the crowd for "showing the courage and
conviction to change the course of history'' in Malaysia.

"This is the beginning of a battle between the people and an illegitimate, corrupt and arrogant government,'' Anwar told the cheering audience.

Al Jazeera's Florence Looi, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said that people had turned up in black.

"They're wearing black to symbolise a black day for democracy. The day they said when the election results were stolen from the people," she said.

"I think they should redo the election," said university student Tan Han Hui. "I'm here to support democracy. I feel the election is so unfair and there are so many dirty tricks."

Meanwhile, the White House, on Wednesday, also called on Malaysia to investigate the claims and congratulated incumbant Prime Minister Najib Razak of the Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition.

"We note concerns regarding reported irregularities in the conduct of the election, and believe it is important that Malaysian authorities address concerns that have been raised," said Jay Carney, the White House spokesman.

"We look forward to the outcome of their investigations."

Electoral fraud allegations

Anwar has called for a "fierce" campaign for electoral reform and said the opposition would soon produce evidence backing its claims that Prime Minister Najib Razak's government committed fraud.

Najib, who was sworn in on Monday after his Barisan Nasional, or National Front, coalition, insisted the polls were totally free and fair.

A joint report released on Wednesday by two independent election watchdogs disputed that claim, saying the elections were marred by bias and irregularities that added up to "serious flaws" in the electoral system.

The report by the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) and the Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) cited continued questions over the integrity of the electoral roll.

The election was "only partially free and not fair," it said.

Lost chance

The vote was touted as the first in the country's history in which the opposition had a chance to unseat the ruling coalition, which has held a tight grip on power since independence in 1957.

Barisan retained a firm majority in parliament despite winning less than half of the popular vote, a factor partly blamed on self- serving gerrymandering and redistricting by Barisan over the years.

Anwar, who has battled the government ever since he was ousted from its top ranks in 1998 and jailed for six years on disputed sex charges, has said the election was stolen via "unprecedented electoral fraud".

Voters across the country complained over the ease with which the indelible ink was removed from their hands, while videos, pictures and first-hand accounts of purportedly foreign "voters" being confronted by angry citizens also went viral.

A Malaysian government spokesperson said that Wednesday's planned protest "is calculated to create unrest".

While previous election reform protests have ended with police using tear gas and water cannon. Police had earlier threatened to arrest participants in Wednesday night's rally.

But with tension high over the country's closest-ever election result, police backed off and a festive atmosphere prevailed as rally-goers waved opposition party flags and blared vuvuzela horns.

Source: Al Jazeera And Agencies