KUALA LUMPUR, June 26 — Khairy Jamaluddin has received a death threat over Umno Youth’s plans to hold a public rally on July 9, The Star’s online edition reported today. 

He did not reveal the contents of the threat, received via text message early this morning, but told The Star that it was an act of cowardice. 

“But all the more resolved to carry on,” he was quoted by The Star as saying. 

On Thursday, Bersih chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan also received a death threat via text message which was also sent to reporters and some members of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih). 

The text message warned Ambiga as well as PAS and PKR leaders from going ahead with the July 9 Bersih rally, and said her life would be in jeopardy should it (the rally) proceed. 

“In response she had also said that she would carry on as planned, and that “nothing has changed” even after she received a death threat. 

“As far as we are concerned nothing has changed. This is nothing racial, it is a united effort by civil society to push for electoral reforms,” she said. 

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) component parties and activists are gearing up to march on July 9 in the second such rally by election watchdog Bersih. 

The first rally in 2007 saw up to 50,000 people take to the capital’s street before they were dispersed by police armed with tear gas and water cannons.