REPRESSION. The dispute will not pass

Appointment had been given on July 9 at the Merdeka stadium in Kuala Lumpur. However, the demonstrators, who responded to the call of the Bersih collective demanding electoral reform, never reached this highly symbolic site where independence was proclaimed in 1957. On their way, cohorts of police officers had been deployed throughout the center of the capital. By the end of the day, more than 1,600 people had been arrested – then released – including the woman leader of the movement and several figures from the parliamentary opposition. But a man lost his life. With the help of water cannons and tear gas, the Bersih movement was put down. Can the government claim victory, as Prime Minister Najib Razak did the next day in front of his troops? The newspapers close to the government hastened to minimize the impact of this mobilization, which nevertheless brought together more than 10,000 people. “Police efforts crowned with success”, title thus in one of its Sunday edition, Weekly, the daily Utusan Malaysia, which belongs to Umno, the Prime Minister’s party. the New Straits Times, also close to power, wanted to be more subtle. In one, a full-page photo of a demonstrator with a hooded face throwing a projectile, and this single question: “Peaceful?”
The media acquired in power will not, however, dispel the malaise that prevails in the country today. The image of Malaysia, which aspires to quickly join the group of developed countries, could be permanently tarnished. Najib himself, who thought he could take advantage of strong economic growth to call early elections, could revise his timetable. This wind of revolt is indeed a bad omen. In 2007, a first mobilization had led thousands of people in the street, as a harbinger of a dazzling breakthrough of the opposition in the March 2008 elections. to nip any protest in the bud.