Pakatan Harapan’s plan to hold an anti-kleptocracy rally in September following the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) third 1MDB-linked civil forfeiture suit is yet another in a long list of rallies protesting the 1MDB controversy.

But since the 36-hour Bersih 4 rally in 2015, which swelled up to more than 100,000 participants at its peak, no other rally in Malaysia has been able to reach anywhere near those numbers.

With the recent spate of rather lacklustre numbers at rallies, which appear to be aggravated by the fragmentation of the opposition, the question now is whether this forthcoming rally planned by Pakatan Harapan falls into the same pattern?

Penang Institute fellow Wong Chin Huat said that nowadays, the standard attendance for a successful rally is 100,000...