COMMENT | Anger and frustrations through hashtags

COMMENT | Malaysians, generally, are a patient lot.

While public assemblies have been normalised by the many Bersih assemblies throughout the past decade, Malaysians are not the sort that will easily go to the streets to protest.

Sixty-odd years of BN winning the elections have shown that when it comes to governments, we are willing to tolerate a lot of negative traits of the powers that be. It took the GST, 1MDB and united opposition to topple BN in 2018 from Putrajaya.

Malaysians have not resorted to the streets, yet. But as someone who has been observing Malaysian social media for more than a decade, I have not seen this much public display of anger and resentment from people.

Last year, the hashtag #MuhyiddinOut trended on social media platform Twitter. Earlier this year, #KerajaanGagal (‘Failed Government’) trended, a moniker that has stuck with this government since. #KerajaanGagal trended regularly, every time the Government incurs the wrath of netizens since it first gained prominence.

A day before the rulers’ special meeting on June 16, #KerajaanGagal and #KerajaanBodoh (‘Stupid Government’) trended. This was after the prime minister unveiled the government’s National Recovery Plan, which was greeted with a resounding thumbs down from many netizens.

The anger at that time was palpable. But the people were not done...