A leaked document containing minutes from a gathering to debate strategies for the upcoming general election, organized by the Open Society Foundation (OSF), funded by George Soros, clearly shows the billionaire’s personal interest within the matter.
A gathering titled “Malaysia Program – Summary of Portfolio Review Results” held in June 2015 outlined OSF’s efforts to support civil society efforts, empowerment of indigenous groups, youth and ladies and rural areas, in addition to free and fair elections .
The meeting was attended by, amongst others: OSF president Christopher Stone and director of the Merdeka Opinion Research Center Ibrahim Suffian.
Combined with the perceived importance of the 2013 general election, this led to OSF increasing its level of urgency and leveraging its networks, external expertise, and advocacy efforts in Washington.
In OSF’s Malaysian program, grantmaking was considered probably the most effective intervention and played a key role in organizing and bringing a whole bunch of 1000’s of individuals to the streets.
The document said that through the grants “large-scale monitoring of local elections was carried out for the primary time and the primary media monitoring project was undertaken.”
OSF added that its support had a selected impact on youth participation, with a whole bunch of young people mobilized.
However, it was mentioned that OSF faced challenges in mobilizing its network of networks on account of poor communication and coordination, difficulties to find local spokesmen, and the extent of vilification of Soros and OSF by the associations in local media.
“As a result, we had to work quietly and minimize our exposure to the public. “Employees only participated in public events and not in private or closed-door meetings,” it said.
The group also worked with other donors reminiscent of the International Republican Institute and the Asia Foundation, which also funded the identical organizations, however the support was for various programs.
The document quoted Ibrahim as saying that there ought to be “greater emphasis on a powerful, growing group of Muslims.”
“The survey shows that they don’t imagine within the reform.
“Due to Malaysia’s strong ethnic element in political discourse and a highly unpopular government, there is a need to broaden the range of constituencies participating in the discourse and include more voices,” it said.
When contacted, Ibrahim said he expressed his views on the general situation of civil society groups in Malaysia.
“How they interpreted and what they wrote, I’m undecided. In the time given to me, I touched on many topics within the discussion about trends, democracy (but) how they got there’s beyond me,” he said.
