No escape from new media effect

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Any advertisement or Public Relations companies which do not have political experts/section, please do not attempt to  do political campaign or anything politics. Your political client’s future may be in danger because of your inadequacy.

*shudder for BN and PR*

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Share with you article found published in Malaysia-today on 14 July 2011:

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Unfortunately for stakeholders in Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat, Malaysia’s political rhythm for the upcoming 13th general election has changed to a new beat from 9 July 2011.

In this new political landscape where the rakyat hold supreme in the choice between Barisan and Pakatan, any forward looking players should now be urgently re-thinking their choice of campaign managers and teams who will play an important role to make or break the political incumbents’ careers or aspirants’ dreams.

Compared with Pakatan which has adopted heavy use of new media much earlier, Barisan is running behind in the race to articulate its messages on this platform. Whether by choice or due to an inability to engineer a mindset turnaround, Barisan’s team has also missed out chances to update its messaging and repair missed touchpoints. Perhaps it might be in serious need of a major overhaul of its voter communication bureaucracies.

For the influential segment of middle class voters who possess more confidence to make a stand on issues and demand for intelligent discourse, BN’s incongruent messages do not synchronize with the people’s vision of 1Malaysia. The incongruous noise also implies a lack of updated skills in political messaging by Barisan’s campaigners, promoters, speakers and spokesmen. One also suspects non-existent political knowhow in the advertising companies managing the BN coalition parties’ or candidate’s media accounts.

Some voters might recall being bombarded by ‘unreal’ messages from political advertisements mostly carried in mainstream newspapers in the 12th general election campaign. Due to its misalignment to voters’ sentiment, some might recall being amused by BN’s manifesto’s theme ‘Selamat, Aman, Makmur’ or MCA’s ad depicting its President still cycling around the new village.

Those messages may have worked well in the days before new media became a daily work, communication and information essential.

According to the Election Commission, Malaysia has 11.82 million registered voters after the supplementary electoral roll for the fourth quarter of 2010 was gazetted recently. In June 2010, there were 16.9 million internet users in Malaysia (representing 64.6% of the population) according to Internet World Stats.

Certainly these data presents a huge opportunity to extend the power of messaging beyond traditional platforms or hardsell to reach the hearts and minds of Gen X and Y families, especially the new voters.

The new media platform exposes its users to diverse perspectives and is a tool to politicize younger people. Today’s voters are disengaged from the traditional ideas of political loyalty and places more value on issues of governance and civil discourse.

Today’s middle class talk about values and rights of an individual. It may even be perceived as a form of cruelty, a turnoff or politically incorrect behavior to cast aspersion via character assassination or cliché to bespattering someone with metaphorical mud. Thence, it was no surprise that individuals ‘guilty’ of moral indiscretions were elected or appointed to office as the value creation from harnessing their career skills carried more weightage against other considerations.

No longer bound to thought limitations of mainstream newspapers, radio and television, your fellow citizens are free to watch and compare ideas on the worldwide internet almost everyday and communicate their expanded worldview to share with their families, relatives and friends in the rural areas or globally.

This complicates and presents a huge challenge to candidates contesting in the urban and semi-urban constituencies. Any political campaigners worth their salt must possess listening experience on the internet before embarking on the political trail to try to persuade voters to listen to their candidate’s message.

As always for political players and stakeholders, fresh approaches to politics are absolutely necessary to convince voters beyond traditional offers of lunch, dinner or charity.

There is no escaping the new media effect and for sure, at any given time, the world may be watching and sharing through the internet what one is saying today or have said yesterday.

By: Ho Aoi Ling
The writer is a social media listening specialist and heads an independent think tank in Kuala Lumpur. She may be reached at cleat.clew@gmail.com or Twitter http://twitter.com/aoiling

Guilty. Malaysia Members of Parliament

Was too angry to post anything last few days.

How can one not be angry when a good man was betrayed in death by the laws of the country and a man who caused his sufferings and eventual death was virtually let off with a slap on the wrist? Imagine his family’s feelings at being let down by law.

Read this.

Do you know, we cannot blame the courts or the judge, as they can only be guided by laws set by Parliament. We have to be aware the instrument to protect the country and its people is the Malaysia laws and in this case, the transport laws have not moved with the times!

How come important laws have not been updated before we were told by Najib Razak that we should dream to become a high income nation?

What have all our Member of Parliaments and NGOs been doing all these years? So busy with Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat partisanship that they neglected to fight to update laws to protect the real rakyat?

Don’t give me the excuse ‘because one is not the government, one cannot do anything’. It is now time to name and find out if any of our MPs has been faithfully ‘memperjuangkan’ laws be updated to protect the rakyat. Let’s see if we can make up even a minimum total of 10% from the 222 MPs in the house fulfiling their responsibility to push for laws updating.

MPs, you are the ones who should say sorry to the nation, you are part of the body responsible that made Malaysians lives cheap enough for hit and run perpetrators all these years.

This coming general election, we must question all election candidates thoroughly before we even consider to donate a vote to them – Ask them bluntly and demand for substantive reply on what will they do to push laws to be updated so that justice can be fair to the people, or a husband, a father, a grandfather like Ong Kim Koon. Rakyat should not be apologetically relegated to just a number in the statistics just because of archaic laws – MPs do you job or risk be replaced in next GE.

Still am very angry.

Sarawak and the Chinese connection

Here’s an interesting telling of deep links of Chinese communities in Sarawak influencing the government. If SUPP fail to have a good show in this election to retain whatever seat they still hold in the state assembly, will the Chinese business community of Sarawak say goodbye to their economic pie? Hmmmm…

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Sarawak and the Chinese scores

The unique lifestyle and ambience of the localities of Sarawak today is a result from years of goodwill, understanding, cooperation and reciprocity among its indigenous groups with the Chinese.

A visit to the Chinese Museum in Kuching offers an interesting picture of Sarawak’s politics of development over the past 30 years that have risen from the Chinese connection. A tour of this Museum is recommended for all interested to learn and apply the secret of key business successes in order to extend it into the future successes of Sarawak.

The Chinese History Museum, located on the ground of the Kuching Waterfront within a stone throw of the landmark Tua Pek Kong Temple tells an interesting story to visitors to Kuching. According to history, the compact building housing the museum was originally built in 1912 as an administrative centre and the judicial court of the local Chinese, but was taken over by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Kuching in 1921 until the present Museum began in 1993.

For first time oversea visitors to Kuching, the museum showcases the multiplicity aspects of the dialectical make-up of Sarawak Chinese, thus providing a clearer perspective into the make-up of the Chinese psyche.

Inside the Chinese Museum, one can immerse in the history of the arrival of Chinese to Sarawak with old pictures and photographs of the bygone eras. All the dialect groups of the Sarawak Chinese are presented here, from the Hakka, Hokkien, Foochow, Cantonese to other minor groups. History buffs would enjoy soaking up the stories and exhibits while regaling in the success stories and vast contributions of the Chinese community leaders to Sarawak.

One can connect to the hardwork and vision of these early businessmen who applied their shrewd business acumen and understood the importance to develop goodwill and friendship by working closely with the local communities to benefit the Sarawakian economy.

Among the earliest indigenous groups to have contact with the outside world is the Melanau people. The community’s long history, legendary tales and myths add colour to the Mukah locality. Melanaus have produced many notable leaders, including Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, who led Sarawak in modern times as its Chief Minister.

Many have admired and asked how a Melanau, whose community make up only 6% of Sarawak’s population can rise up and more importantly, engineered Sarawak’s development. In this case, the close link between the Chinese with their local indigenous partnership should be celebrated. The Chinese connection and united ethnic groups led by their respective political parties riding on the politics of development concept have brought success to Sarawak in the past 30 years. Its proven historical success is seen as the master key to unlock another interesting phase in Sarawak’s exciting future.

Apart from ongoing infrastructural development like roads and town expansion, Sarawak is embarking on a massive transformation with The Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy or simply known as SCORE, a major initiative undertaken to develop the Central Region and transform Sarawak into a developed State by the year 2020. It aims to achieve the goals of accelerating the State’s economic growth and development, as well as improving the quality of life for the people of Sarawak.

From now until 2016, the support and participation from the people of Sarawak are needed to build critical mass and momentum to trigger development, implement high priority infrastructure projects and manage high priority trigger projects. This presents a new shinning opportunity for the political leader possessing the mandatory experience and political savviness to rein in the close business cooperation of the myriad of Sarawak’s communities up to another level internationally.

By the act of harnessing on the Chinese communities and driven by the concept of politics of development, the world may read of another big success story from Sarawak.

By: Bintang Bulan

So, how about a score for Sarawak?

I’m trying to vary the contents of me blog. Boring will it be if it solely be bananafied’s voice always (in Yoda language).

So, here’s another article from a friend in Sarawak to dedicate to BC’s dear readers. Any comments, you know what to do lar.

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How About A Score For Sarawak?

There is one important question that a proud Sarawakian voter will question their election candidates before they pre-qualify them, especially to the novice politicians before letting them make long range policies on behalf of the people of the state.

We all know about those familiar faced candidates who have been involved in mapping out the Sarawak State Assembly policy for its economic and education future. From the Barisan Nasional’s side, they’re the ones who have been seen participating and contributed input into drawing up of crucial state developmental policies like education which achieved its goal of establishing 3 public universities, 3 private universities, 38 private colleges or university branch campuses. Another important developmental policy for the economic growth is outlined in SCORE (Sarawak Corridor Of Renewable Energy) that we keep reading about in the newspaper ever since BN highlighted it prominently in their manifesto.

Before we proceed, let’s arrive at a common understanding of what is a manifesto. According to Wikipedia, it is a public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before an election by a political party or candidate.

For this round of the Sarawak state election, the manifestos from both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat are already disseminated to the voting public and hopefully will not escape the scrutinizing of the all voters who may or may not be partial to any contesting party.

Let’s check out BN’s manifesto which actually has a long range plan via Score to change Sarawak to become the richest State in Malaysia. According the elaboration, Score would increase the state’s per capita income to RM97,500 by 2030, compared with RM45,000 in 2020 and RM37,287 last year.

So, what’s in the Score that is relevant to the normal man who needs to make a living from day to day to feed his family? A further check with the manifesto (by the way, this is a good authority to reference now that it is a made as promise by BN) says that Score is capable of generating 836,000 jobs by 2030, including 44,000 at the professional and management levels as well as 82,000 engineering and technical jobs. Ok, increase of job opportunities checked for the future.

Next, which sector of the economy that BN tells me I should guide my children to specialise in their studies so that they can ride on the economic road map?

Vide Score, BN will give special emphasis to oil, aluminium, iron, glass, marine engineering and food processing in the halal hub. Ok, checked – areas of education for children to pursue in their studies, if they do so desire.

Additionally, BN promises to do the following which I don’t think anybody will pick a quarrel with:
• The protection of the environment,
• The preservation of the culture,
• Traditions of all the peoples in the state; generating more employment and business opportunities;
• Providing more education opportunities and guaranteeing the people’s rights over their lands.
• Improve quality of life, basic amenities and infrastructure eg: roads, water supply, electricity, health services and housing would be provided.

Well, so much for BN’s manifesto.

What does Pakatan Rakyat’s 10 point manifesto tell voters?

Basically, to give the state’s wealth to the people. guarantee of freedom of religion, free WiFi to move Sarawak into a knowledge-state, a Competency, Accountability and Transparency system of governance, respecting the 18-points agreement and a promise to investigate allegations of ill-gotten wealth of BN leaders and their cronies.

Kudos for display of nice ideals and admirable aspiration, realistically please give details of your long range plans to your intelligent voters? How about a policy plan to 2020 or beyond to prove Pakatan’s here to stay, Baru Bian? Do consider this important hallmark of a government before attempting to score for the Pakatan ship.

By: Bintang Bulan

BN and PR lost. Ku Li won Galas by-election

For those Malaysians easily drunk on ‘victory’, for the politically uninitiated and for those who thought they know real politiks.

Barisan Nasional component parties have looooong way to go to regain back lost gound prior 308. This is not a time to celebrate, act cocky or thumping of chests. It is not even a victory for them cybertroopers who have no inkling of political ideology in their tweet little universe.

Suffering Pakatan Rakyat and its components PKR, PAS, DAP, have a looooong way to go to reach Putrajaya.

Therefore, to all Malaysia political parties from opposite divides, please go back dutifully to the drawing board and conduct many more cadre trainings for your party members.

Don’t you dare serve us anymore under-qualified or puppet candidates in the next General Election.

Water will not clean MCA but will fuel Pakatan

Need Clorox.

Need a good variety of strong disinfectants, too.

Will the fortunes of MCA will be spent on deploying detergent agents everytime le DVD pops up in the market due to insatiable fan requests for naughty stuffs?

Does it mean tightening of MCA budgets, as $$ diverted to clean ups will be shaved from budgets for members activities and training?

Gulp, no more big dinners? No more gatherings in nice hotel settings?

How about that, MCA members?

Would you be willing to sacrifice your already miniscule budgetary allocation to the neverending Ops Bersih?

You don’t care?

So for now, you recommend to use water only cos you can live with a little stain, besides, why spend additional energy or scrub clean with smelly disinfectant?

But… when we start to visualise with longer range tactical thinking, we will see a pesky vision of big $$ deployment to fuel clean ups of sexy grime buildups especially near the next General Election.

Gone lar… division/branch peruntukan for pilihanraya!!

And while our brain cells are on tactical thinking mode, let’s venture to imagine that Pakatan Rakyat, especially DAP will forget to capitalise on this popular stain in the 13th GE.

Yesss, this will be a very useless tool for PR to even use to compare and contrast how Barisan Nasional uses 2 legal systems to treat its peoples:

1 set for Anwar Ibrahim and another set for Chua Soi Lek.

Poor Anwar Ibrahim needs to go through the courts to clear himself off the mattress aka bed stains evidence.

Chua Soi Lek need not go through the courts to clear himself off the video dvd evidence.

Ooohm….. and let’s continue to pray MCA members will never be tasked to answer for this folly by their constituents voters.

A question to MCA members and bloggers: You want your party to reform or stay unreformed?

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As reported by Malaysiakini:-

Chua Jui Meng speaking at a dinner in Bukit Mertajam last night said:

…it was unprecedented for Umno leaders to just stand by and watch a defenceless Ong Tee Keat being subject to mounting attacks and pressure by his detractors over his handling of the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal .

Punished for exposing truth

“Ong is the president of the second largest BN component party and no one from Umno is protecting him.

“I find it strange,” said Chua, who lost is challenge for the MCA presidency to Ong in the party elections last October.

MCA president Ong is already facing a suit by Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd’s (KDSB) chief executive officer and Bintulu parliamentarian Tiong King Sing over his outspoken and transparent handling of the PKFZ issue.

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I must declare, that for the first time in a very long time, MCA is demonstrating its will to try to clean itself up.

And yet, beyond the cursory noises made by its central delegates, the support for reform is very deafeningly silent from its 1 million layman members who:

– wear MCA name in their business networking,
– have benefited from MCA’s China network,
– have benefited from MCA’s Taiwan network,
– claim to want a more meritorious politics,
– claim to speak out on behalf of Chinese community,
– claim to want to save MCA

Isn’t it true that Chinese values balance in the environment for a harmonious living and business?

What are you going to do now to ensure MCA stays on to balance UMNO’s presence in BN?

Would you muster up your values of 5,000 years to courageously speak up for your party’s attempt to redeem itself so that it can finally become a political party with substance?

Can you stand up to voice support for MCA reform. Or are you going to run away as usual? Or opt to take refuge with the Pakatan Rakyat and make PR so strong that it replaces UMNO to become the next lord of Malaysia?

Sheesh…. do something quick to help your MCA, if you want to see a 2 party system flourish in Malaysia.

MCA members and MCA bloggers, Malaysians are all watching your next moves.

P/S:

Saving individuals like the stubborn Ong Tee Keat or the tainted Chua Soi Lek should never be more important than saving your party MCA. Choose wisely with an eye on your community’s future.

Wanita UMNO chief contest: Damned if you do and damned if you don’t

Hear ye, hear ye, Wanita UMNO ladies… did the respected Tengku Tan Sri Ahmad Rithauddeen Tengku Ismail sent you ladies a hint! hint! yesterday?

Let the contest begin with a nice compendium of nice short Snippets (or is it called Sound Bites now?)

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A sad woman’s comment:

Snippet #1:

Perwakilan Wanita UMNO perlu pikir sedalam-dalamnya sebelum memilih Ketua Wanitanya.

Perkara paling penting yang mesti dipertimbangkan:

1. Masa depan Wanita UMNO, iaitu dalam jangkamasa kini ke PRU 13.

2. Kebolehan Wanita UMNO untuk berpidato politik untuk bertanding dengan pembangkang dari Pakatan Rakyat. Tanya orangramai dan rata-rata akan berkata Wanita UMNO tidak dapat menonjolkan kebolehan berfikir atau berdebat. Memasak boleh lah.

3. Parti komponen kedua terbesar MCA mempunyai ketua Wanita yang muda. Wanita UMNO bila pula?

4. Ketua Wanita baru perlu memperjuangkan hak Wanita terutama dalam suasana ekonomi yang suram ini. Tanya betul-betul kat Rafidah dan Shahrizat, apa pelan mereka bagi memperjuangkan kesejahteraan kaum Wanita.

~SEDIH.

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Rafidah says that until to the end of the world the Malay women in UMNO will need to throng house to house to do voters survey! Yikes!!! All Wanita UMNO members better load up on your whitening lotions and sun blocks SPF50++ quickly!!! PRU 13 not very far away, you know…

On second thought, how the heck can the women do this in high rise and swanky households of KL, Selangor? One can walk and walk, houses to houses but one can only interview the maids cos the “Tuan tak ada rumah!” I wonder if the baju kurungs of Wanita UMNO can withstand the bites of upset imported dogs… heheheehe…

Snippet # 2:

“Ada kalangan wanita UMNO yang menyebut soal perubahan kerana mereka kata sampai bila Wanita UMNO hendak jadi peraih undi?

RAFIDAH: Sampai kiamat.

Mingguan Malaysia Rafidah memaparkan kenapa beliau ingin terus menerajui Wanita.“
http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2009&dt=0315&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=Rencana&pg=re_02.htm

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A blogger said there’s nothing to shout about Wanita UMNO’s non-achievements so far:

Snippet # 3:
“Jika menyorok sejarah wanita, tiada apa yang boleh dibanggakan oleh sayap parti itu, tiada sumbangan boleh dijadikan buah tangan untuk ahli Umno.

Apa yang wanita Umno tahu adalah melaksanakan lawatan sambil belajar, ke luar negara. Itu sahaja. Rafidah perlu memikirkan satu gagasan idea yang terbaik bagi menjenamakan semula Wanita Umno.”

~Guana Gu

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eh… the journalist also agreed with the blogger on change…
Apparently them journalists are also tired of no ideas from Rafidah despite queening it as Wanita UMNO chief all these years…

Snippet # 4:

“Minta maaf Kak Dah dan siapa jua penyokong Kak Dah. Rata-rata editor kanan MSM yang ada sekarang adalah wartawan sebelum ini yang pernah membuat liputan majlis Kak Dah. Dan mungkin Kak Dah ingat jika ada wartawan yang pernah menemui Kak Dah selepas Kak Dah memberi ucapan.

Biasanya selepas Kak Dah atau mana-mana pemimpin memberi ucapan, para wartawan akan menemui pemimpin itu untuk mendapatkan berita susulan. Dan ada di antara kami yang menemui Kak Dah untuk bertanyakan berita susulan. Kami bertanya kepada Kak Dah satu soalan dan Kak Dah menjawab: “Tadi saya sudah beri ucapan dan awak semua boleh tulis ucapan saya”. Itu kata Kak Dah.

Seorang wartawan menjawab: YB… your speech is nothing. Give us another story.” Itu yang salah seorang daripada kami bertanya.

Ya… dari dulu lagi Kak Dah sudah tidak ada idea. Kejadian yang saya ceritakan itu berlaku pada 1988. Dan sekarang 2008. Bermakna sudah berapa tahun? Dan Kak Dah sudah tua dan memang tidak layak lagi memimpin Wanita Umno. Namun, saya tidak berkata bahawa Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil adalah lebih baik.”

~editorialblog

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Here’s a brief biodata compiled by a fellow blogger on Rafidah Aziz that the people on the street still can remember and gossip about:

Snippet # 5:

RAFIDAH AZIZ – menerima banyak kejutan dalam usaha mempertahankan jawatan Ketua Wanita. Pernah dituduh menjadi punca merosotnya jualan kereta nasional, Proton, kerana menggunakan kedudukannya sebagai Menteri Perdagangan Antarabangsa dan Industri sebelum 2004 dengan mengeluarkan terlalu banyak permit import (AP) bagi kereta Korea Selatan, khasnya KIA.

Dituduh bersekongkol dan mendapat laba besar daripada Naza Motors kerana hubungan rapatnya dengan Allahyarham Tan Sri S.M. Nasimuddin. Naza juga dikatakan memberi saham besar kepada Rafidah.

Sepertimana juga Mohd. Ali Rustam (laporan di Malaysiakini), Rafidah dikecam kerana mendapat habuan besar daripada setiap pelabur asing yang ingin menanam modal di Malaysia. Tidak cukup dengan itu, beliau dilabel sebagai ‘Wanita Besi’ kerana tidak dapat menerima kekalahannya kepada Siti Zaharah bagi jawatan Ketua Wanita suatu ketika dahulu. Ahli Parlimen Kuala Kangsar ini masih tidak dapat lari daripada fitnah mewujudkan kem sendiri bagi jawatankuasa Pergerakan Wanita Malaysia.

~Just read!

Malaysia: Parley now before it’s too late to tackle economic crisis

The Malaysian mainstream media and Malaysiakini are too pre-occupied with petty politics.

I say us normal people should demand for real life stories of the people, for the people.

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Have you heard that a kid at school vomited blood suddenly in class recently? Apparently, this kid was left with biscuits for his breakfast and lunch everyday. His parents rush to work everyday and later back to kiddo with dinner. This child is now fighting for his young life in hospital cos the poor child’s stomach decided to protest from the daily assault of acidic erosion. (Amazing isn’t it, how the stomach just doggedly do its job to grind and grind regardless of any input?)

This story is real. This story is now playing in Selangor.

This story is not in your mainstream newspapers nor Malaysiakini.com

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With daily bad news and low confidence looking on the economic horizon, our stupid politicians are still playing ‘wayang kulit’ to up each other’s ante to grab as much power as possible for themselves.

After Permatang Pauh, Kuala Terengganu, we can expect more energy and money to be spent in possible Perak by-elections.

Sadly, nobody in Malaysia politics has the sensibility to put a stop to all this time wasters! No analysts have whack both Barisan and Pakatan to come to their senses in this time of economic troubles. Political analysts seem too busy fanning up bushfires to help produce more Barisan and Pakatan B-grade dramas.

Maybe I shouldn’t scold the political analysts. In business, it is poor use of resource to waste our politicians hard honed talents of squabbling, demanding each other to resign, back-stabbing each other and name calling.

Meanwhile, leaders all over the world are cracking their heads to solve economic contraction and are even trying to close ranks to tackle economic woes for their country.

In Malaysia, we have idiot BN and PR politicians on rakyat’s payroll spending their time and energy to get their opponents to cross over and party hopping.

I proclaim and demand PARLEY now!

In case our dense Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat representatives are too giddy from power wrestling to even recognise what does ‘parley‘ means:

“Parley (parli or parlei) is a discussion or conference, especially one between enemies over terms of a truce or other matters. The root of the word parley is parlée, which is from the French verb parler “to speak”; specifically the conjugation parlez “you(pl) speak”, whether as imperative or indicative.”

If those silly Pirates of the Carribean can practice parley, there’s no reason for silly Politicians of Malaysian not to.

I demand hero politicians from Barisan and Pakatan having the courage and to stand together to work on way forward for this country in this uncharted times!

If nothing happening soon, it will be time again for the Rakyat to source for new politicians who will ensure no more kiddo stomachs go hungry in coming hard times.