More than 110,000 people have supported a Facebook page demanding that Prime Minister Najib take responsibility and resign for his mishandling of the July 9 Bersih rally for free and fair elections.
The march supported by a crowd of 100,000 had resulted in one death and thousands injured as police chased supporters helter and skelter, firing round after round of tear gas directly into the people rather than over their heads.
As at 1.49pm, there were 118,262 'likes' on the Facebook page entitled'100,000 People Request Najib Tun Razak Resignation', and this number is expected to swell as more Malaysians here and abroad continue to show their displeasure over what they perceive to be his administrations' 'dirty tactics'.
The Facebook page is believed to have been set up on Saturday after supporters dispersed from the streets of Kuala Lumpur - battered, bruised but more determined than ever to fight what they perceive to be gross injustice by Najib, his advisers and the ruling UMNO party. Immediately after hitting the 100,000 mark, commentators on the page wrote, “You're fired” on the wall.
Hisham warns of crackdown
But already Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein is starting to crack the whip again. Instead of refusing to apologize for the series of blunders, Hisham has warned that action will be taken against the foreign media and online press.
"We have visual recordings in our operation room. Whatever has been alleged will be investigated with concrete evidence, and action will be taken against those in the Internet and foreign media who have made baseless allegations," he told a press conference on Monday.
Najib too has refused to apologize for the crackdown and has instead instructed his media and TV networkds to continue brand the rally as illegal, supported only by a small group. He also refused to accept that there was anything wrong in Malaysia's notoriously corrupt election system.
But through the decades, the unchecked abuse has spiralled and the system is now bent completely out of shape. Serious problems include gerrymandering, vote-buying, 'phantom voters', lists containing deceased people and hundreds of duplicated names attributed to single residential addresses.
The Election Commission and judiciary have also lost immense credibility after they refused to take action against Najib for promising voters at a by-election campaign that if 'You help me, I'll help you'.
On Sunday, he got Malaysian to boiling point with his arrogance, warning that if he wanted to do, he could at any moment call on UMNO to create chaos in the country.
At an UMNO event attended by 6,000 people, Najib said that all it took was just a "signal" and members of the ruling would be "willing to do anything".
“Don’t doubt our strength. Umno has three million members. If we gather one million members, it is more than enough. We can conquer Kuala Lumpur. If we want to create chaos, we can. But we uphold the laws of Malaysia, we like peace," said Najib.
“This is just a part of Umno’s strength. We gathered 6,000 members here today in a short amount of time. They are waiting for a signal, they’re willing to do anything."
Pundits believe that the 'end' for Najib may have come sooner than anticipated than anyone, thanks to the power of the social media and due mostly to his own political clumsiness.
"Heads must roll, it was an unjustfied attack and nowhere in the world did anyone behave disgracefully except for Najib Razak. He is an utter disgrace," Bukit Gantang MP Nizar Jamaluddin told Malaysia Chronicle.
Nizar was referring to sister-rallies conducted in 31 cities across the world as the Malaysian disapora showed their solidarity for the call for free and fair elections.
