The negative and irresponsible responses of the government and its leaders to Saturday’s mammoth peaceful BERSIH gathering petitioning the Yang di Pertuan Agong for electoral reforms to ensure clean, free and fair elections is most disappointing though not unexpected.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the BERSIH gathering and petition were “tantamount to dragging the institution of the monarchy, and the king, into politics”.

This is a baseless allegation completely unworthy of the Prime Minister as nothing could be further from the truth.

The Yang di Pertuan Agong symbolizes the fountain of justice in Malaysia, and it is completely within constitutional norms for Malaysians who are shut out from all avenues of redress to seek justice to appeal to the Yang di Pertuan Agong for intervention — and it will be beholden on the Prime Minister and his Cabinet to give such petitions to the Yang di Pertuan Agong serious consideration and not to dismiss them in a most arrogant, cavalier and undemocratic manner.

In this particular case, the mass petition to the Yang di Pertuan Agong is all the more pertinent as the government has turned a deaf ear to widespread and legitimate calls for electoral reforms to ensure that there is a level playing field for all contestants so that clean, free and fair elections could be held in Malaysia.

This is why I said during question time that the government should uphold the important symbol of the King as the fountain of justice by giving serious and positive consideration to the petition to the Yang di Pertuan Agong supported by the mammoth and peaceful BERSIH gathering on Saturday or the government will be doing an injustice to the system of monarchy.

The Cabinet meeting on Wednesday should give top priority to the BERSIH petition to the Yang di Pertuan Agong on electoral reforms and take the initiative to establish a mechanism to ensure that the next general election can be truly clean, free and fair.

In fact, much more is at stake. Abdullah’s response to the mammoth peaceful BERSIH gathering on Nov. 10 petitioning Yang di Pertuan Agong for electoral reforms has also become the acid test whether it marks the burial of his four-year pledge to hear the truth or we have a Prime Minister showing his true colours of refusing to hear and heed the voice of the rakyat.

This, unfortunately, appears to be the case, with the truculent reply by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz during question time this morning when I posed the supplementary question whether the government would give a positive response to the BERSIH petition to the Yang di Pertuan Agong for electoral reforms. Instead of a rational reply, Nazri went into a political rampage!

It is most regrettable that the Barisan Nasional government is suffering from a very serious case of denial syndrome, as evidenced by its refusal to concede that Saturday’s mammoth peaceful gathering was the biggest in the four-year premiership of Abdullah and evidence of the people’s love for peace and commitment to democracy.

It is pathetic to see the official figure for the mammoth peaceful BERSIH gathering grudgingly increase from 4,000, according to the Inspector-General of Police on Saturday, to 10,000 according to Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday, when from all eye-witness, photographic and video accounts, the gathering could be numbered without exaggeration as between 40,000 to 50,000.

If Abdullah can speak in the United Nations to commend the “saffron revolution” of the Burmese monks in Myanmar in September, and Burmese workers in the country could assemble publicly to organize public protests in support of the “saffron revolution”, the least a responsible Prime Minister of Malaysia should do is to acknowledge the legitimacy of the grievances of the mammoth peaceful BERSIH gathering and the exemplary conduct of the 40,000 — 50,000 people who conducted themselves in a peaceful and orderly manner despite unnecessary provocations and excessive force by the police in certain instances — including the uncalled-for firing of tear gas and water cannons — and give serious consideration to the calls for electoral reforms.