Social media abuzz with #KitaMintaLima

A new and mysterious hashtag movement has taken off on Twitter, with the #KitaMintaLima breaching the top 10 trending topics in Malaysia since last night.

The #KitaMintaLima hashtag movement sees netizens on Twitter imploring to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong for five requests related to the Covid-19 pandemic or for the government to be changed.

Most postings on Twitter under the hashtag are accompanied by a poster image of the five requests, which are stated as below:

1. A targeted and effected control order.

2. Full support for frontliners by channelling all resources to fight Covid-19.

3. Automatic bank moratorium and cash aid for the rakyat throughout the movement control order (MCO).

4. Enforcement of the National Security Council's (NSC) standard operating procedures (SOP) in a fair and just manner.

5. Free devices and internet data to all students immediately.

The poster image also bears another request to change the government if the initial five requests cannot be fulfilled.

It has since been reposted by many other netizens, including lawyer and political aide Syahredzan Johan.

"Who started it? Who is behind it? Don't know but I'll get behind it too," he tweeted last night, attaching a picture of the #KitaMintaLima hashtag trending on Twitter, as well as the poster image.

While it is unclear who started the hashtag campaign, the earliest posting of the poster image which Malaysiakini could find was posted at 7.40pm last night by a self-described parody account.

However, there were earlier tweets posted around 5.45pm yesterday by Twitter user 'Muhammad Alias' which contained a text-only version of the requests.

The Twitter user appeared to be responding to someone else who had urged him to express what is in his heart.

As of the time of writing, the hashtag already has around 30,200 tweets.

The MCO, which was re-implemented on Jan 13 due to the spike in Covid-19 cases, has been criticised for its vague and constantly changing SOP.

Criticism against the SOP intensified after the government announced the SOP for Chinese New Year this year, which limited celebrations including reunion dinners to members of the same household.

The National Unity Ministry has also said it would appeal to the NSC on the Chinese New Year SOP after hearing the public's views.