JAN 14 – Everything that can be said about the upcoming KT by-election has already been said in cyber-space so I’m not going to add my two sen to the ongoing debate about who is better and which party should win.
All I want to say is that, for the non-Malay community, especially the Chinese community, there really is no choice.
If you believe in the opposition ceramahs, when you vote for BN, you vote for the continuation of racist policies, Umno’s continued arrogance and further marginalisation of the Chinese community. You also vote for corruption, abuse of power and people who regard Malaysian citizens who are not Malay-Muslims as “pendatang.”
Also, you vote for minor BN parties who are, mind the language, “running dogs” of Umno. These “running dogs”, we are told, are responsible for the death of Chinese culture, language and way of life.
If you believe the BN ceramahs, when you vote for Pas and PR, you are voting for an Islamic state and, in particular, hudud law. You are voting for the “chopping off” of arms and all sorts of restrictions on the Chinese community.
You are voting to be a fourth class citizen in an Islamic state. You cannot celebrate Chinese New Year, eat pork, drink beer and other alcohol and you are not allowed to practise your own religion.
You must be wondering – how come nobody is promising the good life? It’s all about negative campaigning; if you vote this way, you suffer this lot of miseries and, if you vote the other way, you also suffer another set of miseries.
With these “choices”, it’s better not to vote, and that may be the reason why some people do not bother to vote.
If there is one thing about these negative campaigns, it’s that our party people must have learned from the Americans. In the late 1970s, studies have shown that voters remember negative messages (so called “attack ads”) rather than positive ads.
In other words, the most effective way to reach out to the fence sitters or the undecided is to use attack ads to reinforce the negatives of your opponents. It is even successful in Presidential elections.
Michael Dukakis, a Democrat and professor of public policy, found that his campaign was severely dented by a negative advertisement, the infamous “Willy Horton” negative ad in the 1988 Presidential campaign. Dukakis never really recovered from this negative ad and George Bush Senior went on to win the Presidential election.
In Malaysia, the most successful negative ad was used in the 1990 general elections when a photo of Tengku Razaleigh, then an Opposition leader trying to topple Mahathir and BN, was shown wearing a traditional Kadazan headgear with a traditional pattern that looked like a cross. Rumours were spread claming that Ku Li was in bed with the Christians and was wearing a cross on this head! The newspapers published huge pictures on the front page. This simple photo cost Ku Li many votes in the Malay heartland.
Coming back to KT, if both parties are using negative ads as their main campaign strategy, it tells us that they have no idea how the fence sitter would vote.
With only 48 hours before D-Day, you really have to wonder if all both parties can do is to offer the “lesser of the two evils” to the non-Malay community.
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
