The Article 11 road show came to a premature halt after Muslim mobs acted to put a burqa on the broad-based NGO effort. The nationwide road show planned by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih) may be similarly stymied by Saturday’s shooting. This, folks, is the real story and the big picture. The flag burning is only a sideshow.

When elections are unclean and unfair – from my living memory it’s always been ‘Flawed elections, ergo flawed democracy’ – Bersih is an urgent, all too necessary and possibly a too-little-too-late initiative. Be that as it may, the Opposition and many NGOs have gotten together to try and take this off the ground. Good on them. Better to do something constructive than to shrug that nothing can be done.

But now that the purported ‘riot’ has occurred, will the disturbance be used as an expedient excuse to curtail Bersih’s momentum?

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