Ambiga Sreenevasan, the electoral reform group’s former chair, said Maria is only using a different platform to champion the same reforms she had sought all along.
“For me, it is a chance to get your voice directly heard in Parliament, where you can influence the way legislation is crafted,” she told FMT.
Ambiga said one should realise how difficult it is now for dissenting voices to be heard in the country.
Civil society, she said, must think out of the box to come up with strategies that will allow for their voices to be heard.
Earlier today, Tawfik Ismail said Maria’s decision confirmed Barisan Nasional’s suspicions that the NGO was not as independent as it claimed to be and that it was “led and had been hijacked by the opposition”.
The former Sungai Benut MP also questioned whether Bersih 2.0 would be able to gain as much traction as it had in the past following Maria’s announcement.
But Ambiga disagreed, saying Bersih had never been about one person or even a few people.
“It is about the rakyat, for the rakyat and by the rakyat. The strength of Bersih is that it will continue to grow no matter who is in charge.”
Andrew Khoo pointed out that military personnel, civil servants, NGO activists and even muftis had resigned from their jobs and become candidates in a general election.
Some, he said, have been successfully elected to office.
“Do we say that these people or the institutions they previously worked for were ‘hijacked’ by a political party? That is pure hyperbole.”
Former Bersih 2.0 steering committee member, Haris Ibrahim, meanwhile said Bersih is pro-rakyat and so cannot be non-partisan.
“We have been fighting for reforms which the people want. The Barisan Nasional will never give us the reforms we have been demanding. So, it cannot be a question of working with BN on these reforms.”
He said Bersih had always taken a stand to work with all parties on the reforms and because of this, it had to work with the opposition which is pushing for the same reforms.
Haris said he didn’t believe Bersih supporters would be disappointed with Maria’s decision to enter politics, as it could increase the chances of bringing about reforms.
“I welcome Maria’s decision to contest in GE14, more so as an independent candidate,” said Haris, who was a Bersih 2.0 steering committee member till 2011.
Maria, he said, was a very viable candidate and had shown over the years that she was only interested in reforms and not power.
Haris, a vocal critic of Pakatan Harapan’s prime minister candidate, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, also said Maria must be given time to share her reform agenda and views on Mahathir leading the nation.
“I think many in the opposition are making a mistake by working with Mahathir, but I don’t think lesser of them. I think Maria is still a good candidate. Let’s give her time to make her position clear.”
Maria, in a short statement yesterday, said: “I have decided to resign from Bersih 2.0 as the chair and to take on a new challenge in the political arena.
“I am offering myself as a candidate for this coming PRU14 as an independent to Pakatan Harapan.”
She is holding a press conference tomorrow to give more details.