COMMENT This time round, the police force passed the test of its public relations skills in handling a major protest rally. Some things do change, after all, in Malaysia.

After the PR disasters of its handling of the Bersih rallies of July 2011 and April 2012, the police tackled the ‘People's Uprising' rally that was staged at the Stadium Merdeka yesterday by the opposition Pakatan Rakyat with intelligence and restraint.

But, as if to make the point that this panache was an aberration rather than a characteristic, the force proceeded to flub its math test. It revised downwards its initial estimate of the crowd at the rally to 45,000...