Crowd at ‘uneventful’ Kuching rally short of the 10,000 mark

The 10,000 crowd DAP had hoped would turn up at the Bersih rally in Kuching never materialised but the crowd was nearer to the organisers' target of 7,000. Described as rather "tame and uneventful" by one rally participant, there were no incidents nor any arrests reported especially among those who wore yellow Bersih 4 t-shirts. Police were out in numbers but the units trained in handling riot and crowd disorder, the Light Strike Force and the Public Order Riot Unit (Poru), were nowhere in sight anywhere in the city. Rally participants, depending on which group they are, first gathered at either Taman Sri Sarawak mall near the city's waterfront or the car par of the Jubilee ground athletics field before marching to the Song Kheng Hai rugby field – the site the state government had approved. The mixed bunch of speakers – political activists, politicians, environmental activists – spoke on topics ranging from the gerrymandering of the state's electoral boundary by the Election Commission in its recent delineation exercise to the opposition of the proposed Baram hydroelectric dam to the depreciation of the ringgit and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's dubious donation. Bersih Kuching spokesperson Karen Shepherd likened the action of Najib to a restaurant manager stealing from the restaurant, which in this context represented the country and the other staff, its people. She said to solve the problem the owner or the staff would not resort to burning down the restaurant or firing the staff. She said the best way would be to fire the manager. So unexciting was the rally that by 5pm, the crowd has dramatically thinned leaving DAP leaders behind to camp at the field overnight. – August 29, 2015.