An Activist's Road to Politics

The following article was taken from The Sun, 12th March 2005. Finally an unbiased, intelligent interview in the mainstream press with an opposition politician... and of all people, Sivarasa Rasiah. This man is an absolute gem of a human being and I'm proud to say that I know him and have his number in my handphone (his wife number oso I got... what you got? nothing. you are a loser).

*ahem*

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An activist's road to politics
Cindy Tham

EVEN BEFORE he entered politics, Sivarasa Rasiah, 48, had been politically engaged as a human rights activist and lawyer.

He represented ISA detainees after Ops Lallang in 1987 and was a founding member and director of Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) as well as of the National Human Rights Society (Hakam).

The events of 1998 prompted him to enter the political fray and he was elected vice-president of the new Parti Keadilan Rakyat [as it's now known following the merger between Parti Rakyat Malaysia and Parti Keadilan Nasional] at the party's first congress from Dec 17 to 18 last year.

He talks to CINDY THAM about the transition from being merely politically engaged to being a politician as well.

You went into active partisan politics largely as a result of the reformasi movement. How would you assess the move?

It was and remains the right move to make.

We're entering into an important phase now. Of course, how it will eventually play out remains to be seen. I think it's very difficult to expect major things to happen within a matter of months or within one or two years.

With the strengthening of Keadilan as a multiracial political force, we are looking at the emergence of a stronger opposition pushing for democratisation of the country. In time, this stronger opposition will become a real option for voters.

How has the experience been for you personally?

The last six years have been tumultuous, especially the first few years.

Post-September 1998, there was a lot of violence by the police. I've seen the blood on the heads and faces of demonstrators on the streets and also in police stations. Once I was walking down Jalan Tun Perak when I saw the FRU pull a few people into their truck and beat them with plastic chairs.

I was lucky -- I was never physically injured or beaten on the street although I've been arrested and locked up a couple of times. So that's what I mean [by "tumultuous"].

So joining PRM happened after Anwar's arrest?

Yes. It was my response to the emergence of the reformasi movement. To me and a number of other activists, we saw that it was time to get engaged in the mainstream political movement because it was no longer right to stand outside anymore.

Outside meaning ...

Outside the political movement in the form of political parties.

But as a human rights activist and a lawyer, you were also very political in your stand, and then you decided to make that transition or move into partisan politics ...

Being in opposition politics, [laughs] frankly, is not that different from being an activist as such. I mean, it is different in certain ways... the kind of activities you do can be different, the kind of people you interact with are different, yes.

But in a number of ways, there are similarities. And, of course, doing opposition politics in this country is, without question, difficult.

What are the main issues that you've been taking a strong stand on?

In most NGO-based work, one tends to focus on narrower issues.

My earlier work with Suaram in human rights was quite broad but even then, we would engage mostly with civil and political rights, and occasionally, broadening [these] to other issues like land and housing rights, indigenous people's rights, etc.

But we had to focus, you can't do everything. So certain NGOs just stick to one issue, like the Women's Aid Organisation sticks to domestic violence or certain areas of women's rights.

However, when you're engaged politically, I found that you really have to start engaging on broader issues: foreign policies, economics, the management of the country. For me, the rights-based approach became the foundation to deal with a broader range of issues.

Any regrets taking that plunge from being an activist to a politician?


No, no, absolutely not. It wasn't an emotional move. It was a reasoned reaction to a particular political context, and saying it was now time to go into the political movement and contribute because we could see changes, major changes, happening.

And it was important to play a role, and if possible, to drive the change along. For me and other like-minded friends, it was taking our activism from the NGO arena into the political parties.

So advocating for change as an activist is different from advocating as a politician?
I don't think so. I really don't see myself as not being an activist anymore whilst being an opposition politician. I still see myself very much as an activist within the political movement.

Our styles may differ compared to what we did as NGO activists. For example, an NGO activist will take very clear stands on particular issues. Suaram, for example, is very clear about where it stands with human rights and if PAS does something which is against its human rights values, it will critique PAS.

Now, in the political movement, especially when you try to build coalitions or common platforms, you find that is not quite so straightforward. But having said that, Keadilan will not compromise on core human rights issues, and where necessary, we will critique other coalition partners.

Actually, that's one of the points I was hoping you would elaborate on. For example, during last year's general election campaign, you pledged to support freedom of expression in the arts. That means you took a stand against the PAS-led government's view on the public performance of traditional Malay drama dances like makyong in Kelantan. So this is one example of how the different opposition parties have different views on certain issues, where you don't see eye-to-eye. How do you see the opposition parties working together then, when there are conflicting views?

In terms of freedom of expression in the arts, I did not just criticise PAS, I also criticised the Barisan Nasional for its restrictions on freedom of expression in the arts.

For example, freedom of expression in the arts has been a problem for a number of years now, arising from Barisan Nasional policies, both in the Malay language and English language drama worlds.

Now, of course, when PAS took power in Kelantan in 1990, it also started certain problematic policies, like restricting wayang kulit performances in a certain way and later with makyong. I have criticised that publicly and I will continue to do that.

I think we also need to understand that political parties in any country, not just Malaysia, have a variety of ideologies but that does not mean that they don't work in coalitions.

For example, in India and in a number of other countries, political groups that are quite different ideologically have come together in coalitions. They don't agree with everything each other espouses but they recognise that the reality of their national context of politics is that single parties cannot bring about change by themselves.

We do not have in Malaysia [a system] like in the US where politics is dominated by two single large parties exchanging power from time to time.

In most other countries, and this is our reality as well, parties have to work in coalitions. So they sit down together to hammer out a common platform, sometimes they do it before the elections, sometimes they do it after the elections.

And this is what we are trying to do. So whilst Keadilan will maintain its disagreement with PAS on certain core issues, and even with the DAP, we will attempt to work in a coalition because it's a political necessity.

What are the issues that the coalition has agreed on?

There's a wide range of issues. All I have to do is read you the 1999 manifesto... That tells you the huge range of agreement ...

That hasn't changed?

That hasn't changed.

But it is also true to say that after 1999, especially when PAS won Terengganu and continued to rule Kelantan, there were certain policy positions PAS took, like pushing the hudud laws, which have become problematic and caused the DAP to leave.

There is no question there is a clear ideological difference here between Keadilan and PAS. Keadilan, for example, emphasises the constitutional framework of the Federal Constitution. That's our starting point.

As a multiracial party, we do not endorse the idea of a theocracy in any form whatsoever, whether Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist or whatever. We believe in the existing constitutional framework, except that we will democratise it if we are given a mandate to rule.

If you look at all the other issues in the 1999 Manifesto, especially the democracy issue, the key institutional issues concerning the judiciary, the media, the attorney-general's chambers, issues of accountability, transparency, social issues, economic governance issues, there was complete agreement among all the parties, DAP, PAS, the old Keadilan and PRM.

As a concrete example, all of us are clear on the need to repeal the ISA, as also recommended by Suhakam to the government.

I must also say that because of the way that PAS has pushed certain issues in the last five years in Kelantan and Terengganu, this has made coalition-building in the opposition much more difficult.

In the last general election, the voters also sent a clear signal with regard to certain issues. We hope now that PAS leaders will come to terms with this message and recognise the fact that once a common platform is agreed, it must be adhered to.

Anwar [Ibrahim] is also conducting informal discussions with both PAS and DAP to see if a clear common platform can be worked out.

Was it difficult for you to adjust to this need to form coalitions?

As an NGO-based activist, you probably don't have to worry so much about this, but now, as a politician, you find that you need to deal with all these differences a lot more.
Well, some of my own NGO experience is actually not that different because it was rooted largely in Suaram, and of course in other groups as well, like Hakam or the Bar Council.

But Suaram, in particular, as an NGO, has constantly worked to network NGOs and to form NGO-based coalitions and also with political parties on key issues of human rights. We're the ones who stressed that coalitions need not have limits on membership.

Some of the NGOs felt that political parties shouldn't sign a joint statement with them. We disagreed. We said "no". A joint statement is a statement of principle. Anybody who agrees with it should be allowed to sign. So, in that sense, for me, it was not a different experience.

But, of course, you have to recognise that in the NGO world, it's necessary to take what you'd call a purist position. And it has to be done because that's what the NGO world is about. It's not about compromise. It's not about finding a middle ground because in certain issues, you can't.

So this is the adjustment, to some extent, that I find in the work within the political parties. The parties are about competing interests, and often, completely different points of view and sometimes, there has to be some give and take on that in coalition work.

But whatever it is, for the new Keadilan, we have a 17-point political programme in our constitution and we will not compromise on any of these.

The reason you made that move from being an NGO-based activist to a politician means you really believe that you can make a bigger contribution ...

Oh, absolutely!

I decided to join PRM in 1999 as it was a party I had supported earlier. It was really a response to the events of September 1998. We could see enormous societal changes happening in this country and felt it was the right time to contribute through joining the political parties...

Why PRM?

Because it was a party I could identify with in terms of its political, ideological positioning.

PRM started in 1955. Of course, it's gone through its ebbs and highs in its history. Its multiracial face [that is, leadership], left-of-centre ideology with social justice and democracy as core principles reflected the value system I espoused as a social activist. PRM has always tried to champion the rights of the downtrodden, the poorer half of society.

While PRM had no objection in principle to a market economy, it has maintained that the government of the day has a duty to socially manage the market economy as well as ensure a fair or just distribution of the country's wealth and to ensure that education, housing, healthcare, all these fundamental social needs, are looked after.

PRM and its leadership had faced major obstacles, gone to jail for many years, come out, carried on. Not just Dr Syed [Husin Ali], who is among the more prominent ones, but there are many PRM leaders who have sacrificed years of their freedom in jail under the ISA for their political beliefs.

So that's what attracted me to the party and I joined [PRM] before Keadilan was even set up.

I have friends who joined Keadilan after it was formed in April 1999 -- Tian Chua, Irene Fernandez and a number of others. But we also knew that at some point, these two parties would eventually merge.

We had a sense of it, through what was happening on the streets. The reformasi movement was on the streets. We could see we were doing similar things.


You've said you have no regrets going into politics. But have there been some disappointments along the way?

I made the decision to enter a political party in the context of the large social changes that were clearly happening after Anwar's arrest.

I think what we've seen six years on is that those societal changes are still carrying on. I would have had regrets if we had misread the whole situation completely [chuckles] and one year after it had all gone back to the status quo of, say, early 1998, that ultimately nothing had really changed.

With Anwar's release, these changes are going to continue in the same direction. Maybe not with the same [momentum] as in the first few months after September 1998 but you can see it's a genuine change.

But surely there were some disappointments along the way?

Yes, on a personal level, sometimes I had hoped that change for the better would happen at a quicker pace. But we were dealing with a strong oppressive response.

But looking at things objectively, one also realises, democratisation of this country is not going to happen overnight. It will take time. But those who want this change will have to keep the pressure up.

Well, you ran in two general elections...

Frankly, I don't look at [my losses in] the elections as a disappointment although they were very interesting experiences.

Of course, we went into the elections wanting to win but it's important to be objective and realistic about these things.

We came close in 1999, very close. I mean, I was a first-time candidate in Ampang Jaya, up against a two-term MP and I got 45% of the popular vote and reduced his majority by 25,000. The opposition as a whole got 46% of the popular vote. That's quite an achievement.

What are your thoughts on where the opposition movement is heading? What are the challenges the coalition would need to address?

I think the priority for the new [Parti] Keadilan Rakyat would be to focus on strengthening itself first.

We had a very successful well-attended Congress in Ipoh in December last year where a new leadership was elected. One of the immediate priorities for this year is a major membership drive to attract members from all communities in Malaysia.

We have a great political vision to offer to the voters. We believe in the democratisation of Malaysia, promoting social justice for all regardless of race or religion, and bringing about transparent and effective governance.

On another note, you're one of the shareholders of Malaysiakini. You've supported it from day one. But you're also an activist and a politician covered by its reports. As a shareholder, what is your stand or view on the news site trying to be objective and independent and at the same time, having to write analyses of what you do?
Well, my shareholding is actually a very small shareholding.

Would you be able to say how much?

In company law terms, there's a definition of what you call a substantial shareholder, anyone who holds more than 5%, and I'm not a substantial shareholder. My actual share is quite insignificant.

All shareholders sign an agreement with the editors that they will not attempt to or interfere in any manner with editorial policy. I was happy to play a role in the initiation of Malaysiakini in 1999. We all felt it was very important to set up an Internet newspaper.

For me, private ownership of media institutions whether by political parties or by individuals is not a problem so long as there are legal guarantees of press freedom in the country and there is publicly owned media -- like the BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation] which is government-owned but run by an independent board without interference -- giving access to all views.