Anti-Umno activists campaign the old-fashioned way — by hand
(The Malaysian Insider) – An anti-Umno group’s campaign to spread its message through a video began in earnest last night with the distribution of dozens of hardcopies at a spirited ceramah here.
Keeping to its viral theme, the Asalkan Bukan Umno (ABU) coalition handed out VCDs and urged attendees to pass along copies of the hard-hitting video to their family and friends in rural areas to break Umno’s heartland media chokehold.
Kamarulzaman Ismail, 47, a businessman from Kelantan, said he will target voters who had yet to choose sides to convince them not to cast their ballot for the ruling Malay party.
“I’ll pass it to those who appear to be sitting on the fence. We have to give priority to the fence-sitters,” he told The Malaysian Insider.
But Kamarulzaman said he would also try to hand the video over to those he knew were hardcore Umno supporters despite the small likelihood of success.
“There are many approaches when it comes to people. Sometimes it looks difficult but with things like this CD it can be easy too,” he said.
Mohd Sharif, 30, a sales promoter, also said it was not enough to distribute the video among opposition supporters as the goal was to sell ABU’s message to undecided voters.
“It’s not enough for us to disseminate it. We need to convert people,” he said.
However, the PAS member downplayed the effectiveness of passing the video along from person to person, reasoning that it would be better to screen it in a public setting to draw fence-sitters.
Sharif added that the video would also be more effective online, pointing out that this would allow ABU supporters to share the video without appearing to come on too strong.
“You can say (to someone), ‘I just want to share something and this is the website.’ Usually, that’s better,” he said, adding that directing a person to a page online would also allow them to view related videos.
