PSM chairperson Dr Mohd Nasir Hashim this afternoon shot back against Information, Communication and Culture Minister Rais Yatim’s criticisms that “desperate parties” were using communist ideology to drum up support for the Bersih march on July 9.

NONE Nasir ( right ) described Rais’ justification of the arrests of PSM activists in Penang over the weekend as “shot through with the nonsense that would be the norm if it had come from Hishammuddin Hussein, but not from the holder of a doctorate on the wisdom of constitutional limitations on executive power.”

Rais had told the press in the lobby of Parliament this morning that “spreading communism is against the law. It is evil and illegal .”

The normally mild-mannered Nasir was bristling with indignation after having read Rais’ remarks castigating his detained PSM cohorts as “desperate parties” who were using an “evil and illegal” ideology to gain support for the Bersih march.

“First of all, we are socialists, not communists,” said Nasir. “The distinction is important because the one is known for subscription to democratic processes of government while the other puts faith in a dictatorship of the proletariat which they feel justified to bring about through violence.”

NONE “You’d expect Rais ( left ), the holder of a doctorate on constitutional checks and balances, to know the difference but he has shown deplorable awareness of the nuances,” he added.

“You’d expect that kind of heedlessness from the half-educated but not from Rais, the holder of a doctorate,” charged Nasir.

He said Rais was like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black when he said that PSM belonged to the category of the “desperate” wanting to bring down the Umno-BN government through the seizure of power by a minority.

azlan “Who has actually become the minority and who is actually the majority in this country?” queried Nasir.

“He has the gall in the face of Umno-BN’s slumping support to categorize the opposition as a minority and his sinking ship as the majority,” asserted Nasir.

“We aren’t likely to know the answers to the question of who’s the minority and who’s the majority until we have had a general election.

"What is so wrong, then, in canvassing for support for a march that seeks to ensure that the exercise of the vote at the coming polls would be free of all trammels that have vitiated it in the past?” asked Nasir.

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