Khairy Jamaluddin said the best way to stop the Red Shirts rally was to ensure that the polls reform group Bersih 2.0’s subsequent rally did not take place. — Picture by Choo Choy May

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 30 — The best way to stop the Red Shirts’ rally next Saturday is to ensure that the polls reform group Bersih 2.0’s subsequent rally does not take place, youth and sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin has said.

Khairy said the Red Shirts’s planned November 5 rally was a reaction to Bersih 2.0’s planned November 19 rally.

“Red (Shirts) only want to show that they oppose Bersih, if Bersih does not do anything, the reds would certainly not do anything, so the burden lies on Bersih. The best way is to not allow the Bersih 5 rally to happen,” the Umno Youth chief was quoted saying by local daily Sinar Harian.

“If there are any Umno Youth members found to be involved in Bersih, we will also take action because the Bersih rally is against the Umno government and PM (prime minister), this is against party discipline,” he also said.

Khairy urged the police to shut down all access roads that will be used by the Bersih 5 rally participants on November 19 to reach the rally venue of Dataran Merdeka.

“We don’t want chaos like what happened in Bersih 3 to repeat, since various extreme action was done then including flipping over police car and many stores were damaged. This Bersih rally can create chaotic conditions,” he claimed.

“So we suggest that PDRM not only disallow them from using Dataran Merdeka for the Bersih 5 rally but also take all necessary actions so that no marches begin from the locations that have already been identified,” he added, referring to the police by its Malay initials.

The Red Shirts movement, which is led by Sungai Besar Umno division leader Datuk Jamal Md Yunos, plans to hold a rally at Dataran Merdeka next Saturday afternoon.

Bersih 2.0 is slated to hold the fifth edition of its street protest on November 19 after a nationwide convoy tour for a month, with its five demands being clean elections, a clean government, strengthening parliamentary democracy, the right to dissent, the empowering of Sabah and Sarawak.