Bersih was declared illegal on July 1st and about 200 activists were rounded up.
ECONOMIST: An overzealous government response to an opposition rally
Perhaps the government was looking back nervously to the first Bersih march, in 2007.
ECONOMIST: An overzealous government response to an opposition rally
Ms Ambiga is co-leader of the Bersih movement, a coalition of NGOs campaigning for free and fair elections.
The march itself was then banned, although the authorities offered Bersih a stadium to meet in and then withdrew the offer.
ECONOMIST: An overzealous government response to an opposition rally
She points out that her Malay co-leader of Bersih, a famous writer called A. Samad Said, has never been targeted.
Several leaders of Bersih, including Ambiga Sreenivasan and Maria Chin Abdullah, were among the 1, 401 people that police said were arrested.
Over the last few years, Mr. Najib bowed to demands from the civil society group Bersih for tighter controls and monitoring.
Similarly, in Malaysia, the government has at times seemed more worried by Bersih, a campaign for electoral reform led by Ambiga Sreenevasan, a lawyer, than by the formal opposition.
Ever since, UMNO and its underlings have been demonising the leaders of Bersih, which may have cheered some from the majority Malay population but could also backfire against the government.
Meanwhile, Ms Ambiga and other Bersih co-leaders (not the Malay one) have been issued with a bewildering demand for compensation from the Kuala Lumpur city council for costs incurred during the April rally.
The current prime minister, Najib Razak, deputy prime minister in 2007 before taking over the top job in an internal party coup, must have feared that the second Bersih rally might be a similar portent.
ECONOMIST: An overzealous government response to an opposition rally
Opposition politicians were quick to join Bersih.
ECONOMIST: An overzealous government response to an opposition rally
In addition to the scrutiny provided by a coalition of NGOs known as Bersih, which has so far refused to endorse the election results, ordinary Malaysians used YouTube to highlight issues such as the ease with which one could wash away the "indelible" ink that marked those who had already voted.
应用推荐