Cancelled beer fest in Malaysia: if Najib is courting Islamic hardliners, are his rivals any better?
As Islamic hardliners grow more influential, political parties hesitate to offend the voting bloc of religious Malays, and the cancelled Oktoberfest-inspired event is likely a sign of things to come
Compared to the millions-strong boozy crowd of Munich’s fabled, month-long Oktoberfest, the now-cancelled Better Beer Festival in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur would have been a decidedly flat affair.
Planned for this weekend in a shopping centre and with just around 6,000 people expected to attend, the latest installation of the country’s biggest annual craft beer event would have posed little threat to public order, and was likely to have gone unnoticed in the international media.
Two other Oktoberfest-related, beer-themed events in shopping malls are also likely to be banned in areas the opposition controls.
While Najib for years has been under fire for his purported appeasement of Islamic fundamentalists, these bans are raising questions on whether the Mahathir-helmed opposition is in the pocket of religious conservatives as well, despite its public brand as a champion of secularism.