Malaysia GE: Candidates all out to woo voters as campaigning enters final stretch
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Candidates will be upping their hustings with more rallies, appearances by political heavyweights and widening their social media outreach.
ST PHOTO: ARIFFIN JAMAR
PETALING JAYA – As campaigning enters the final stretch, candidates contesting in the Nov 19 Malaysian General Election will be upping their hustings with more rallies, appearances by political heavyweights and widening their social media outreach to ramp up support and sway fence-sitters.
Some political parties are checking on their safe seats and keeping track of “grey areas” – seats which they stand a good chance of winning – while others are looking to rev up their strategies before campaigning for the national polls officially stops at midnight on Friday.
Barisan Nasional (BN) election communications chief Ahmad Shabery Cheek said it was constantly monitoring the 191 seats it was contesting in.
“At the moment, our approach is to identify and check on our hardcore supporters in each constituency. In some areas, we have more than 50 per cent of them, while in other areas, it is below that, but we are in the midst of updating the numbers,” he said.
On BN’s strategy to woo fence-sitters, Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery said it was tracking the “grey” seats, areas that could be turned into safe seats for the coalition.
“We have to make numerous checks between our list and that from an outside survey. Sometimes, in our list, a constituency may be considered a safe seat... (But) we will get the relevant information to determine if our ‘grading’ is correct,” he said, adding that once this was done, BN would try to identify various factors that could change voting patterns.
Some of the factors could be national issues, but Mr Ahmad Shabery said, sometimes, it could also be localised factors that could determine the voting pattern of voters.
In Penang, state MCA Youth chief Lim Swee Bok said with a significant number of young voters this time, the party’s candidates had turned to social media as their main platform.
“In the final week, candidates started creating more content on social media to reach out to voters, especially first-timers and youth.
“At the same time, candidates are also meeting young voters in person to understand their needs and help explain the election process because, for many, this would be their first time voting,” he said.
Opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) strategic director Sim Tze Tzin said the party’s main focus now was to explain to voters on how the opposition Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition would manage the economy.
This usually takes place at its rallies attended by party heavyweights such as opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli and other senior party leaders.
“The current main issue is the high cost of living and inflation faced by the people, so we will compare our performance against that of BN, Perikatan Nasional and Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS),” Mr Sim said.
Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) media liaison head Leben Siddarth said its candidates were mainly focused on in-person campaigning as well as pushing out more content on social media.
“We will have more engagement with the people. We are also doing multiple online campaigns for fence-sitters and educational videos on the importance of voting and the need to vote wisely,” he said. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK