by SIMON ROUGHNEEN
KUALA LUMPUR – Almost 10 months after security forces forcibly broke up an electoral reform protest in the national capital, a chaotic repeat looms. The Malaysian government and city authorities will attempt to close off the city center square where activists hope 100,000 people will gather this weekend to seek sweeping changes to the electoral system.
The rally organizers, known as Bersih (Malay for “clean”) 3.0, are a coalition of non-governmental organizations and rights groups who say they want Malaysia’s electoral laws amended. Opposition members of parliament allege that tens of thousands of irregularities persist on the electoral register, while Bersih has dismissed the election commission as toothless and called for the election commission to resign. The rally is being held ahead of anticipated snap polls later this year.
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The UMNO-dominated Barisan Nasional (BN, or National Front) ruling coalition has governed Malaysia since independence. The present opposition coalition led by Anwar Ibrahim, a former UMNO insider, achieved its best-ever result in 2008, denting the government’s two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time in the multi-ethnic, multi-religious state.
Around 60% of Malaysians are either ethnic Malay or other “indigenous” groups and are mostly listed as Muslim. Another 25% are ethnic Chinese and 7% mostly Tamil-speaking Indian-Malaysians. Party and voting allegiances have not traditionally been cast on strict ethnic lines, however, with UMNO and PAS competing for the “Islamic” vote and with separate Chinese-dominated parties in both the BN and opposition coalitions.
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