With several burning issues from the state of the nation to bread and butter matters coming to the fore, Malaysians have every reason to be angry.

 

For instance, the country is only days away from the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) amid a series of controversies surrounding the more than RM40 billion debt involving government-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

 

These issues, together with an ongoing police crackdown on dissent, were the central theme of the Kita Lawan rally in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

 

The Kita Lawan movement was birthed with the jailing of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim but has adopted several other issues of discontent with the ruling coalition.

 

Its series of protests culminated in a successful outing on March 7, where some 10,000 people thronged Kuala Lumpur to call for the freeing of Anwar, who today has spent over a month in prison.

However, the Kita Lawan protest yesterday only drew some 500 supporters following an overnight crackdown on Saturday.

 

Several leaders who were meant to lead the protest were arrested, including PKR vice presidents Rafizi Ramli and Tian Chua, PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu and activist Hishamuddin Rais ( below, watching the rally from Dang Wangi station ).

 

While the crackdown may be one of the reason for the lacklustre turnout yesterday, past experiences suggest that arrests do not normally deter supporters from turning up at rallies.

 

For example, Over 100 people were arrested just a week before the massive Bersih 2.0 rally 2011.

But when the day came on July 9 that year, almost 200,000 flooded the streets of Kuala Lumpur to demand free and fair elections.

 

The differences between yesterday's rally and the landmark 2011 protest are plenty.

 

For one, PAS did not conduct a full mobilisation of its members for the rally. The few who did participate were notably leaders closely aligned to the progressives faction.

 

PAS conservatives wary

 

Amid a divided PAS, the conservative faction led by party president Abdul Hadi Awang is known to have had an uneasy relationship with Anwar, and the former’s supporters are less than keen about a rally in support of the jailed leader.

 

DAP, the only party that is still a hundred percent friendly to PKR, too did not mobilise its supporters, but for a different reason.

 

The party's national organising secretary Anthony Loke yesterday told Malaysiakini DAP was not mobilising its leaders and supporters as it disagreed with plans by Kita Lawan to gatecrash the wedding reception of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's daughter at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC).

 

PKR was the only one that mobilised its supporters, and even the party was cautious about the supposed plan by organisers to interrupt the reception which was the planned final destination of the rally.

 

Even though a directive was issued to supporters to back the rally, PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil in a statement denied the party would disrupt the wedding and said the focal point was at Sogo shopping centre several kilometres away.

 

The plan was to gather at Dataran Merdeka, Masjid Jamek and PAS headquarters before marching to Sogo and on to KLCC.

 

Despite the faltering momentum less than a day before the protest, Kita Lawan committee member Fariz Musa was insistent on the wedding plan, stating that intention wasn’t to gatecrash but to "celebrate" the happy occasion.

Wedding gambit backfired

 

In line with this, protestors yesterday bore the traditional ‘bunga manggar’ along with cutouts of Najib’s daughter to fete the union.

 

However as they approached KLCC, a police line was already formed and plainclothes policemen had their fluorescent vests on and cable ties in hand, ready to make arrests.

 

In the end, the Kita Lawan protesters did not press on and failed to reach KLCC like it did on March 7, and dispersed after a 45-minute sit-in with the Twin Towers in their sights.

 

In the end, Kita Lawan’s wedding gambit may backfired by upping the stakes with the police, who responded more aggressively with pre-arrests and a show of force, and by discouraging supporters and leaders who did not want to partake in the disruption of the wedding, especially if something were to go wrong.

 

In the opinion of the latter, punishing Najib's daughter Nooryana Najwa over politics was simply not the politically savvy thing to do, and that cost Kita Lawan a better turnout.

 

Furthermore, a divided Pakatan Rakyat did not help, as opposition rallies had relied heavily on party mobilisation and Kita Lawan cannot expect much goodwill from middle ground non-opposition party members.