As at 9.20pm tonight, more than 100,000 have signed on to a Facebook campaign opposing the Najib administration’s Warisan Merdeka skyscraper.
The proposed 100-storey building in the city, has stirred up spontaneous grassroots opposition, moving the issue to the front and centre of current Malaysian politics.
More so impressive is the pace of recruitment — that only seven days ago Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced the plan, during his budget speech. It is clear the groundswell opposing it is considerable and now has shaped into a major political minefield for the Barisan Nasional(BN) government.
It began with the Facebook page “1M Malaysians Reject 100-storey Mega Tower” being created anonymously soon after the announcement.
Those who have backed the campaign are ordinary Malaysians who use the popular social networking site.
“Malaysians saying no to the RM5-Billion 100-storey Mega Tower proposed by PM Najib in the 2011 budget. Malaysia needs better education, better health care, better public transportation, safer neighbourhood, cleaner water, but not taller building(s). We don’t need another white elephant! Are you ready for action?
“Announcement to be made when we reach 100,000,” said the administrator of the Facebook page earlier today.
Last Friday, Najib announced Permodalan Nasional Berhad’s (PNB) initiative to complete the RM5 billion construct by 2015.
“A few months ago,some Minister said that the country will be going bankrupt if subsidies are not withdrawn.... so this is why the subsidies were withdrawn... to build another “Mega White Elephant “ project.
“While the people suffer, our leaders are finding more ways to rob the nations depleting wealth !!At this rate in 20...20 Malaysia will become a fully developed Zimbabwe or worse!!” said one of the comments on the page by a Natalie Ho.
Another fan, Kirksman Teo claimed that the government’s push for the building indicated that they had learnt the lesson from their losses in the last general elections.
“A leader once said, the people should not fear the government, the government should. Rightly so.
“Now... Why the devil does the government refuse to listen to the people once again?... Knowing very well that the last time they lost, it was because they didn’t listen,” said Kirksman.
Expectedly, opposition politicians like DAP’s Lim Kit Siang have entered the fray, providing live updates of the growing number of Facebook fans every hour.
The anti-Warisan Merdeka Facebook page has 102,739 fans as at 10.21pm tonight.
In contrast, a pro-Warisan Merdeka fanpage on Facebook has only 244 members as at the same time.
The Najib administration could now be faced with a major hurdle in winning over support for what was supposed to be a symbol and pride for all Malaysians.
comments
Before BN looses the Putrajaya ,they want to wallop all the money before surrendering to PKR.
The Edge reported on 21 Oct 2010, that Petronas has only 82% occupancy rate.
Many of the tenants are related to oil and gas industry. And Petronas basically force them to rent at Petronas TT, otherwise it will be 'difficult' to do business with Petronas. That is how they fill up the offices. If not who wants to pay RM90 per square meter to rent there !
1 tower is occupied by Petronas. The other by companies that have money to throw such as bloomberg and khazanah. But if you view the tower block from mid tower in any petronas office, you will see vacant offices.
With this facebook page, all Malaysians stand united, all but only 1 aim, to bring down the big, ugly, corrupted monster called "UMNO-led BN"...
BN will not listen to people. The building will be built. All top UMNO guns supporting it so that they can chip out some business opportunities out of it.
Let's wait and see the action. No way job opportunities will be there for Malaysian....all Bangla, Indonesia, Vietnam and other foreigners will come into Malaysia. Then will register as voters for BN. That is the big plan. How is it!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment