Press statement by Teresa Kok, National Organising Secretary of Democratic Action Party and Member of Parliament for Seputeh in Kuala Lumpur on 14 June 2011
DAP pledges full support for the BERSIH 2.0 march for clean and fair elections
On behalf of the Central Executive Committee of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), I pledge our full support to Bersih 2.0 in their call for electoral reform to restore clean and fair elections in Malaysia. Bersih 2.0 can count on DAP to mobilise our party members and supporters to march on July 9, 2011.
For too long, the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (BN) has undermined the right of the rakyat to elect a government of their choice through corrupt and illegal electioneering.
Gerrymandering (manipulation of electoral composition) and malapportionment (manipulation of electoral size) is rampant, to name but two abominations in Malaysia’s electoral process.
A clear example of malapportionment is how during the March 2008 general elections, the constituency of Putrajaya, with its 7,000 voters, sent one MP to Parliament while my constituency of Seputeh, which has 77,000 voters, also had only one seat in Parliament. It is unjust that the vote of a single voter in Putrajaya carries 11 times the weight of a voter in Seputeh.
Furthermore, in the March 2008 elections, BN won only 51 percent of the 7.9 million votes cast and yet with that, they controlled 63 percent of the seats in the Dewan Rakyat, i.e. 140 of 222 seats.
If you exclude Sabah and Sarawak, where BN won all but two seats, their popular vote dips to 49.8 percent in Peninsular Malaysia, and yet they were allowed to form the Federal Government. (Source: http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=10778)
All these electoral manipulation is traitorous to the will of the people.
I express my full support and admiration to Ambiga Sreenevasan, Chairperson of Bersih 2.0 for her leadership and unwavering commitment to the cause of clean and fair elections, unbowed by the relentless attacks upon Bersih 2.0 by the Barisan Nasional government, Utusan Malaysia and Malay supremacist group Perkasa.
I condemn all these attacks, particularly Perkasa’s plan to hold a counter-protest and have a direct clash with Bersih 2.0 supporters on July 9 itself. It’s clear that Perkasa is bent upon violence.
Perkasa’s hostility towards Bersih 2.0 proves that Perkasa is a volatile group with no clear mission and zero integrity. They claim to be a Malay rights group yet they declare crusades against Christians one day, protest against peaceful anti-ISA groups the next and now they object to electoral reform. These feral positions taken by Perkasa lend credence to the popular belief that Perkasa is really UMNO’s own extremism by another name.
Teresa Kok
A big YES !
Indeed a fair and clean election must be exercise in this coming general election if BN still has the pride and dignity to face the people for continue supports.
Perhaps a world watch-dog committee from UN have to be invited to witness the role and system of election carry out by the SPR in this election to prevent dirty and money injections for votes.
Wishing the event be a successful one !
Menyusahkan Rakyat sahaja!!!!
Nizam,
We all rakyat juga!! Stop being unfair to 49% of rakyat!!
Utusan Malaysia should be banned from publication for creating false stories. Their story about students getting training to demonstrate and jihad to topple the Government is clearly malicious, with no credible reference. They should be condemned by CIJ. I’ve been Pas Youth for 10 years. Not only I’ve not heard of such training, even Pas Youth are not given such training except some guide on facing the police. They are the worst of a newspaper, becoming an institution of chaos in our society