PUTRAJAYA, Sept 4 — Peaceful rallies like the Bersih 4 rally last weekend would not have been possible under former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad due to his allegedly “oppressive” rule, anti-graft advisor Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim said today.
Comparing Dr Mahathir’s rule to the current administration headed by Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Tunku Abdul Aziz said there was now greater space and openness.
“The fact that the day of your arrival, you saw people demonstrating in the streets, now that wouldn’t have happened.
“In Mahathir’s time there would have been water cannons, there would have been police in riot gear, so for me this has been a tremendous sense of achievement,” the chairman of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s anti-corruption advisory board said at the 16th International Anti-Corruption Conference here.
The 34-hour Bersih 4 rally ended without any incidents of violence and without any water cannons being rolled out to disperse the crowd.
This is not the first time that massive rallies have been held under Najib’s administration, with the Bersih 3.0 rally in 2012 featuring prominently in the news for the use of teargas and water-cannons on rally-goers.
Tunku Abdul Aziz claimed that Dr Mahathir had during his 22-year-long tenure as the fourth prime minister used “oppressive” laws to suppress Malaysians.
“He used every oppressive apparatus of the state to keep people down,” he said.
“I’m not claiming to be courageous, but I thought that I would take him on, a lot of people say you are brave, I say I’m not brave, I’m just standing for my rights,” he added.
