Malaysia’s premier vowed on Sunday he would not quit over a $700-million financial scandal, and accused protesters of showing “poor national spirit” by holding a massive rally to demand his resignation on the eve of the country’s National Day on Monday.
After a weekend of demonstrations, the government took back the streets of Kuala Lumpur, with Prime Minister Najib Razak and his Cabinet ministers attending a gala parade involving 13,000 people, AP reported.
In his National Day speech late Sunday, Najib slammed protesters for showing a “shallow mind and poor national spirit.”
He said Malaysia was not a failed state and slammed protesters for tarnishing the country’s image. He vowed not to bow to pressure.
Police sealed off the square over the weekend. Large crowds of protesters in yellow shirts of the Bersih movement, a coalition for clean and fair elections, camped overnight around the square, even after authorities blocked the organizer’s website and banned yellow attire and the group’s logo.
Police estimated the crowd size at 35,000, but Bersih said it swelled to 300,000 on Sunday from 200,000 on Saturday.
“What is 20,000?” Najib said, downplaying even the police number. “We can gather hundreds of thousands,” he said in a speech in a rural area in a northern state earlier Sunday. “The rest of the Malaysian population is with the government,” he was quoted as saying by the local media.
