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Riot police reacted after some protesters among the crowd of at least 25,000 tried to break through barriers, in defiance of a court order banning them from entering the city’s historic Merdeka (Independence) Square. They fired dozens of tear gas rounds and chased protesters through nearby streets.

Protesters also battled with police at a train station nearby, throwing bottles and chairs at officers who responded by firing tear gas rounds. A police car was overturned by angry protesters after it hit demonstrators. Most of the protesters had dispersed by early evening but sporadic clashes with police continued.

“They (the police) asked the crowd to disperse but did not give enough warning,” said Aminah Bakri, 27, with tears streaming down her face from the gas.

“They do not care.”

The police reaction could carry risks for Prime Minister Najib Razak if it is seen as too harsh, possibly forcing him to delay elections that must be called by next March but which many observers had expected for June. Najib’s approval rating tumbled after July last year when police were accused of a heavy handed response to the last major electoral reform rally by the Bersih (Clean) group. It has since rebounded to nearly 70 percent.

Some media sites put the number of protesters as high as 100,000, which would make it by far the biggest since “Reformasi” (Reform) demonstrations in 1998 against then prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.

The protest posed a delicate challenge for Najib, who is anxious to attract middle-class voters ahead of an election that is shaping up as the closest in Malaysia’s history.

But Najib must be mindful of conservatives in his party, wary his moves to relax tough security laws and push limited election reforms could threaten their 55-year hold on power.

Human Rights Watch was quick to condemn the police action.

“By launching a crackdown on peaceful … protesters on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian government is once again showing its contempt for its people’s basic rights and freedoms,” said Phil Robertson, the group’s deputy Asia director.

WATERSHED FOR NAJIB

Malaysia’s Bar Council’s Legal Aid Center said around 200 people had been detained, far less than the more than 1,600 who were held in last July’s protest.

“Police acted with utmost restraint and efficiency,” Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on Twitter, adding the situation was now under control.

Bersih, an independent movement whose goals are backed by the opposition, has a history of staging influential rallies as Malaysians have demanded more freedoms and democratic rights in the former British colony that has an authoritarian streak.

Many of the protesters on Saturday were younger Malaysians who have become more active in recent years, chafing at political restrictions and cronyism in the racially divided Southeast Asian nation.

“The younger generation, especially my generation, want to be involved,” said 19-year-old university student Chan Mei Fong. ‘We cannot be quiet.”

The July protest was a watershed moment for Najib, prompting him to promise reform of an electoral system that the opposition says favors the long-ruling National Front coalition.

The National Front is trying to recover from its worst ever election result in 2008 when it lost its two-thirds majority in parliament, giving the diverse, three-party opposition led by former finance minister Anwar Ibrahim real hope of taking power.

Najib has replaced tough security laws – ending indefinite detention without trial – relaxed some media controls, and pushed reforms to the electoral system that critics have long complained is rigged in the government’s favor.

A bipartisan parliamentary committee set up by Najib this month issued 22 proposals for electoral reform, including steps to clean up electoral rolls and equal access to media.

But Bersih has complained it is unclear if the steps will be in place for the next election.

The government says it has already met, or is addressing, seven of Bersih’s eight main proposals for the election, which will see the first use of indelible ink to cut down on fraud.

Bersih says the proposals do not meet most of its key demands, including lengthening the campaign period to at least 21 days from the current seven days and international observers at polling stations. Bersih and opposition parties say they have unearthed multiple instances of irregularities in voter rolls, including over 50 voters registered at one address.

(Additional reporting by Angie Teo and Siva Sithraputhran. Writing by Stuart Grudgings, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Ed Lane)

At least 25,000 demonstrators swamped Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, hoping to pressure Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ruling coalition – which has held power for nearly 55 years – to overhaul electoral policies before polls that could be held as early as June.

Malaysian police said in a statement that 222 people were arrested. Lawyers said most were expected to be released soon after having their details recorded, but it was not immediately clear if they would be charged later with any offense.

Officials said three demonstrators and 20 police were injured.

Authorities insist the elections will be free and fair, rejecting activists’ claims that the Election Commission is biased and that voter registration lists are tainted with fraudulent names.

“The independent Elections Commission has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the next elections are free and fair and meet the highest international standards,” Dato’ Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, minister of home affairs, said in a statement.

Demonstrators wearing yellow T-shirts, waving banners and chanting slogans poured into downtown Kuala Lumpur, massing near the city’s historic Merdeka (Independence) Square that police had sealed off with barbed wire and barricades.

Authorities had refused to allow Bersih, or Coalition for Free and Fair Elections – the opposition-backed pressure group that organised the rally – to use the square, a nationally renowned venue that hosts parades and patriotic celebrations.

The demonstration remained peaceful for several hours, prompting organisers to declare it a success and ask people to head home.

But when a small group appeared to suddenly breach the police barriers, authorities began firing tear gas and water laced with stinging chemicals at the crowd.

A federal police spokesperson estimated there were about 25,000 demonstrators, but many witnesses and some Malaysian news organisations said there were between 80,000 and 100,000 protesters at the rally.

Police action ‘unjustified’

Kuala Lumpur’s police said in its social media statements that authorities were forced to move against the protesters, but opposition leaders and rights groups said the action was unjustified.

Defending the police, the minister of home affairs, said: “I would like to commend the police for their professionalism and the restraint they have shown under difficult circumstances.”

“A group of protesters tried to provoke a violent confrontation with the police, but overall at this stage it would seem this afternoon’s protest passed off without major incident,” he said.

“Despite opposition claims to the contrary, the government fully respects peoples’ right to peaceful protest, which is enshrined under Malaysian law.”

The rally’s organisers have also sought longer election campaigning periods and changes to ensure citizens living abroad can cast ballots, as well as international observers for the polls and fairer access for all political parties to the government-linked media.

Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said: “As far as the protesters are concerned, the government haven’t met their demands. They want a series of improvements to the electoral system. They are calling for better electoral role. They also want the electoral commission, which runs elections this country, to be entirely reformed.

“The protest was not what both sides [government and protesters] were talking about. They were talking about peaceful protests. Ideally, the protesters wanted to protest inside Independence Square.”

Saturday’s gathering follows one crushed by police last July, when 1,600 people were arrested.

That rally for clean elections prompted a police crackdown with tear gas and water cannon.

A resulting backlash prompted Najib, Malaysia’s prime minister, to set up a parliamentary panel whose eventual report suggested a range of changes to the electoral system.

But Bersih and the opposition are demanding a complete overhaul of a voter roll considered fraudulent and reform of an Election Commission they say is biased in favour of the governing coalition.

Najib has launched a campaign to repeal authoritarian laws in a bid to create what he called “the greatest democracy”.

His ruling coalition had a dismal showing against the opposition in 2008, and Najib is under pressure to improve on that

Riot police took action on Saturday when some of the tens of thousands of demonstrators began encroaching on the historic Merdeka Square in the center of downtown Kuala Lumpur, despite police and government warnings to keep away from the area. Some groups of demonstrators lingered in the area for hours, and at least 388 demonstrators were detained, police said. Rally organizers criticized the police response as unnecessary and disproportionate.

Last year, police broke up a similar rally with tear gas and water cannon, and briefly detained about 1,600 members of the Bersih activist group, whose name means “clean” in Malay. That earned Mr. Najib’s government international condemnation and prompted him to move forward on a series of political overhauls, including ending the Southeast Asian nation’s Internal Security Act, which allows for indefinite, warrantless detention.

Protest leaders earlier Saturday said they would march up to the heavily guarded perimeter of Merdeka, or Independence, Square, where Malaysia first hoisted its national flag after independence from Britain. There they held a sit-down protest in the surrounding streets, joined by opposition politicians including opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Among other things, the yellow-clad Bersih supporters are demanding that the country’s electoral rolls be cleaned up to prevent fraudulent voting and that alleged biases within the country’s election agency be removed. In addition, they want international observers to monitor polls and also ensure that all political parties get similar access to government-controlled broadcasters and newspapers, which dominate the media in Malaysia. The protesters also want to enable Malaysians living overseas to be able to cast ballots. The next elections must be called by March 2013.

“Today is our day. No one can take it away from us,” Ambiga Sreenevasan, one of the co-founders of the Bersih group, told a crowd before beginning a march toward Merdeka Square. “Today we speak with a clear voice: We want clean elections.”

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal earlier, Ms. Sreenevasan said, “today we have reclaimed our public spaces.

“The atmosphere is simply amazing,” she said. “The camaraderie amongst everyone is unmistakable.”

Malaysia, a major global exporter of computer parts, energy and palm oil, still is a conservative country where many voters and political power brokers are fearful of large street protests despite the rapid growth of the Internet and a proliferation of independent news websites, which often are critical of the government.

While a parliamentary committee is considering changes to Malaysia’s election laws and the government has agreed already with some of Bersih’s proposals, authorities appear unhappy that the protesters wished to assemble in the historic heart of the city. Speaking in Kuching, Mr. Najib said only the square is an unsuitable venue for political protests. He said national and city authorities had offered alternative venues, including a nearby stadium.

“We have built this country. We have made sacrifices to bring Malaysia to where it is today. We must defend the country while at the same time allow them their basic right to assemble,” Mr. Najib said, according to state news agency Bernama. He also denied that Malaysia’s electoral system was rigged against the opposition.

In a statement, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the government respects people’s right to protest and added that he “would like to commend police for their professionalism and the restraint they have shown under difficult circumstances.”

There was a palpable tension throughout much of Malaysia’s commercial capital Saturday. Some businesses, especially around the busy central market, opted to pull down steel shutters. At Merdeka Square, police armed with tear gas had been preparing to repel protesters since cordoning off the area Friday morning.

When a group of protesters began to move toward Merdeka Square amid loud chants, police acted quickly, launching tear gas and firing water cannon, sending large groups of protesters running up city streets to avoid the acrid fumes from tear-gas canisters. Outside the Sogo department store, protesters overturned a police car, which allegedly had hit two protesters, while volleys of tear gas penetrated deep into the crowd.

“I was hit by tear gas. It was not very pleasant,” Sen. Nicholas Xenophon from Australia, who is leading an international fact-finding mission on electoral overhauls, told The Wall Street Journal. “There is an Arab Spring. This is the Malaysia Spring. There is an unstoppable desire for reform.”

Mr. Najib’s reformist credentials likely will be undermined by the police action, which march organizers described as disproportionate to the threat posed. Yet some political analysts said Saturday’s protest might not necessarily hurt him or the ruling National Front coalition in an election.

James Chin, a political science professor at the Malaysian campus of Australia’s Monash University, who attended the demonstration, said many protesters were looking for a confrontation and that this might play into Mr. Najib’s hands if he calls an early election. “The reforms will still be on,” Mr. Chin said. “But the core of the regime will remain intact.”
—Shie-Lynn Lim and Jason Ng contributed to this article.

Gabungan menuntut pilihan raya bersih dan adil (BERSIH) berkata perhimpunan mereka berjaya dan mendakwa 300,000 rakyat Malaysia turun menyertai BERSIH 3.0 menuntut reformasi pilihan raya.

“Dalam erti kata tersebut, ia adalah satu kejayaan,” kata pengerusi bersama BERSIH, Datuk S Ambiga dalam sidang media selepas perhimpunan tersebut.

“Suasana yang hebat dan bilangan yang ada di situ – ia amat besar.”

 “Kami merasakan bahawa ia adalah satu kejayaan kerana terdapat sokongan yang begitu banyak untuk tujuan ini dan segala-galanya berjalan dengan baik (sehinggakan) kami memberi arahan supaya bersurai dengan cepat, pada jam 2.30 petang, kerana semasa kita sampai ke Dataran (Merdeka), amat sukar bagi orang ramai untuk duduk,” kata Ambiga.

“Bagi orang yang hadir, mereka berkelakuan baik bagi sejumlah seramai itu,” katanya

Beliau melahirkan rasa kesal atas kekecohan yang berlaku selepas
sebahagian daripada penghalang yang menutup Dataran Merdeka dirempuh, dan berkata ia “amat menyedihkan”.

Beliau juga memandang berat laporan bahawa penyokong dan anggota polis yang bertugas cedera dalam kekecohan tersebut, dan menegaskan bahawa jawatankuasa pemandu akan bekerjasama sepenuhnya dengan polis dalam menjalankan siasatan mereka.
   
Bagaimanapun, kerana beliau tidak ada fakta yang tepat mengenai kejadian itu, maka Ambiga berkata, BERSIH akan memanggil satu sidang akhbar minggu depan berhubung butir-butir lanjut mengenainya.