He looked almost like them in his white shirt and spectacles, except his hair was not plastered down with hair cream but was more like that of Bart Simpson's.

He even spoke like the senior Lim - rather ponderous and using phrases like 'draconian laws' and 'repressive tactics' and asking Malaysians to 'break down this devil of race politics'.

Mr Jeff Ooi has crossed from blogging into politics. He also seems convinced that he is destined for Parliament and has set up a new blog (parliament.jeffooi.com).

Fellow blogger Ahirudin Attan - or Rocky as he is known (rockybru.blogspot.com) - was there to 'walk with Jeff', as he put it. The DAP would love to have Rocky as well but most people do not see this former newspaper editor in politics.

The popular notion is that the Internet and in particular bloggers are about to play a key role in the general election. Political websites made their debut in the 2000 general election. At that time, there were only about 280,000 Internet subscribers but it was still a powerful enough campaign vehicle for the opposition forces which had gathered around the cause of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's imprisonment.

Today, the number of Internet subscribers has ballooned to some 11 million and there are about 10 million voters. There is an overlap of about 70 per cent between the two groups but it is largely in the urban centres.

Thus, in spite of the fuss over political blogs and websites, the ruling party is quite aware that the impact of the Internet will be mainly on urban seats.

Most Umno politicians, whose domain is the rural seats, are quite confident that the traditional media is still more powerful than blogosphere among their Malay constituents.

'The impact of the Internet on this general election is really overrated. A lot of the fuss being kicked up is politicians playing politics. If you follow the comments on some of the more popular blogs, it's clear they're preaching to the converted. People take sides, they read what they like and what they want to believe in,' said Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's don, Professor Dr Mohd Safar Hasim.

A survey by the think-tank Merdeka Centre suggested that politics are but a small part of what Internet users are interested in.

Said the centre's director Ibrahim Suffian: 'Internet usage is highest in the Kuala Lumpur-Selangor area, with 60 per cent of users below 40 years old. However, their focus aren't political blogs because a large proportion of them check out news portals of mainstream newspapers.'

He said the proportion of those going into anti-establishments sites was quite minimal and people were interested in all sorts of news and information, not only political discussions and gossip.

'They will not be able to influence the vote because people don't take them seriously,' said Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin, who has gone on the warpath with bloggers.

Tussle of wills

THE irony is that the opposition parties are wooing bloggers while the ruling coalition is engaged in a tussle of wills with them.

The powers-that-be have not warmed up to the power of the Internet since day one and the relationship thus far is best described as a work in progress.

Datuk Zainuddin, at one of his typical no-holds-barred press conferences, labelled bloggers as 'goblok' (an Indonesian slang word for stupid).

Of course, many Netizens were infuriated although they have called him worse names.

Umno Youth deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin lodged a complaint with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission over a doctored photograph involving the Deputy Prime Minister and the murdered Altantuya Shaariibuu posted on the blog of an opposition politician.

More recently, a group of Barisan Nasional senators led by Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib lodged a police report alleging that malaysia-today, the political website run by Raja Petra Kamarudin, had insulted the King and Islam.

'Raja Petra is cocky, writing all kinds of fiction about people. I've been a target and I think I have the right to say he is writing rubbish about me and my friends in Umno. Enough is enough,' said Datuk Norza Zakaria.

The mercurial Raja Petra is arguably the leader of the pack when it comes to political sites and has a large following among the urban intelligentsia. As such, he made news when the police called him in for questioning.

He was released after eight hours and that was when he turned the tables on his detractors. He dashed off an article about what he told the police and, in the process, he spoke about Tan Sri Muhammad's previous marriage to the Selangor princess (who is Raja Petra's cousin), questioned the politician's wealth and challenged Umno to take him on.

His article was the talk of the town even among Umno politicians. Hits on his website exploded from the usual two million a day to 6.5 million at the height of the issue. They have since settled down to about four million.

But the above incident revealed a number of things.

One is that very few senior politicians are familiar with the Internet or blogs and bloggers.

For instance, when the senators arrived at the police station to lodge the report, they had to get someone to help them access Raja Petra's website. Then they could not locate the allegedly offensive article they were looking for.

Is it any wonder that the younger generation and those in the blogging community are so sceptical of those in mainstream politics?

'If politicians want to take on the bloggers, they had better be well-prepared or else their credibility will suffer,' said Mr Mohd Safar.

The Internet is still a strange creature to a large number of older politicians, so maybe this cyberwar stuff should be left to the Youth wing.

Raja Petra, with his appetite for extreme exaggeration, has written some pretty outlandish and outrageous stuff about public personalities. But he is essentially clever, knows his rights and is a totally fearless fellow. And, of course, there are his impressive royal ties.

Those who wish to take him on had better be on a par with him and they should also not live in glass houses.

The new media, said corporate consultant Khoo Kay Peng, has broadened, deepened and strengthened to the extent that it is a challenge to the traditional media.

But he said the government is still very traditional media-centric, preferring to interact only with the traditional media. It does not know how to engage the new media, which does not face registration requirements and is not under any sort of control.

He said the government should seriously consider the Internet as one of the channels of news to engage. For instance, he said, if the government were to open up their events to Malaysiakini, the portal content would be very different from what it is today, carrying both sides of the news rather than just opposition-centric news.

Many opposition MPs and assemblymen have been blogging away in contrast to those in the ruling party.

But Subang Jaya assemblyman Lee Hwa Beng is an exception in the Barisan.

He was one of the first politicians to have a website (hwabeng.org.my) and it is always current, chockful of constituency news and well-read.

Datuk Lee is one politician who does not feel threatened by cyberspace.

On Wednesday, he accepted an invitation from a Malaysiakini employee who lives in Subang to visit the office where he had lunch with the staff and gave them an interview.

'I have always told the Malaysiakini people, if the issue concerns me or my constituency, to give me a chance to have a say,' he said.

Generation X, the people born between 1965 and 1976, are the ones who adapted easiest to the new media. But close on their heels are the millennial generation, those born between 1977 and 1998.

The new media will be the preferred choice of the millennials and yet so many political leaders are still not into the new media.

THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK