Keeping their cool
INCIDENTS in the weeks preceding the Bersih 5.0 rally and Red Shirts counter-rally on Nov 19 were somewhat ugly and sometimes violent, indicating a definite clash between the two groups.
With both sides determined to rally on despite repeated warnings from the authorities, this meant that for the first time the yellow shirts would be met with a counter rally by the Red Shirts.
However, apart from several minor incidents, the predicted clash did not happen because of the watchful men in blue.
The coordinated arrests of key leaders on both sides by the police the day before may have served to take the sting out.
Hours before the rally kicked off, police made preemptive arrests of Bersih leaders, Red Shirts leader Datuk Seri Jamal Yunos and some of his members, Opposition politicians and student activists.
Bersih 2.0 chairman Maria Chin Abdullah was detained with other Bersih leaders on Nov 18, the day before the rally.
She was freed from her detention under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 on Nov 28 after 10 days in solitary confinement.
Jamal was detained by the police early Saturday, hours before the Bersih 5 rally was scheduled to take place.
At the rally itself, the yellow shirts outnumbered their red shirt rivals.
Although Bersih supporters were not able to march into Dataran Merdeka as they had initially wanted to, they gathered at major hotspots around the city, including KLCC where they listened to speeches from prominent leaders, including former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former deputy prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and activist Datuk S. Ambiga Sreenevasan.
The lack of leadership following Jamal’s arrest may have had a debilitating effect on the Red Shirts as many loitered around, walking back and forth along Jalan Raja Laut and Jalan Kuching before they gathered at Padang Merbok at around 1pm but they left the area by 3pm.
In the run-up to the rally, Maria claimed that she and her family received several death threats including threatening WhatsApp messages showing digitally edited images of Maria, Ambiga and Maria’s three sons kneeling before a masked man holding a knife to their throats.
On Nov 13, Jamal was left with a bloody nose at Ampang Point when things got rowdy between his Red Shirts and the police after the he and his supporters spent most of the day pursuing Ampang MP Zuraida Kamaruddin from PKR and Bersih supporters throughout her constituency, mocking them as an LGBT group.