Did “too many generals spoil the battle”?
The “war room” from movie “Dr. Strange Love: or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.”
The BN war room was tasked with selecting the candidates and advising various strategies to win the polls. It counts Rompin MP Datuk Seri Dr Jamaluddin Jarjis, PWTC chairman Datuk Seri Dr Alies Anor Abdul, Petronas director Omar Mustapha Ong, Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Mansor, party information chief Datuk Ahmad Maslan and former minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh as among its members.
Another Brick in the Wall
Or were the generals suitable for today’s political warfare?
When Prime Minister, Churchill visited his Cabinet Room in May 1940, he declared: ‘This is the room from which I will direct the war’.
That cabinet room became known as Churchill’s war room and he held 115 Cabinet meetings till 28 March 1945, when the German V-weapon bombing campaign ended. [Read Wikipedia here.]
Barisan Nasional introduced the concept of war room to direct and monitor it’s political campaign in the recent general election.
One can expect the room is filled with people, computers and information on candidates, contested seats, opposition, campaign message and issues, news, polls, projections, etc. for the generals to work out campaign strategy/ies.
However, did the war room helped make BN’s political battle as strategically organised, disciplined and dedicated, and precise like any military campaign?
The Malaysian Insider’s Editor, Jahabar Sadiq wrote a report on BN’s war room. Off course one can’t be too trusting of MI. However, Utusan Malaysia carried a report on this similar issue and Johor blogger, Mael Pengerang here posted something on the war room too.
The American Heritage Dictionary described war room as “a room in which strategic decisions, especially for a military or political campaign, are made.”
Essentially, a war room is filled with members with specific expertise and authorities, and latest available information to assist strategic and tactical decision making to guide the ground troops.
We like to share and comment on Jahabar’s report which to the best of our knowledge, there is some truth, some spinning and some was based on ill-informed source. Nevertheless, it is something worth pondering for BN, if their wish to learn something fast out of it:
BN’s reduced wins put spotlight on ‘war room’ strategists
May 14, 2013
The Malaysian InsiderKUALA LUMPUR, May 14 — Questions are being asked about Barisan Nasional’s (BN) “war room” strategists whose plans with a substantial budget did not appear to stop the ruling coalition from losing more federal and state seats in the May 5 general election.
The BN war room was tasked with selecting the candidates and advising various strategies to win the polls. It counts Rompin MP Datuk Seri Dr Jamaluddin Jarjis, PWTC chairman Datuk Seri Dr Alies Anor Abdul, Petronas director Omar Mustapha Ong, Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Mansor, party information chief Datuk Ahmad Maslan and former minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh as among its members.
The war room seem useful as a guide to assist Ahmad Maslan and other party leaders carry out their work, but one wonders who was the Churchill that provide the leadership and gave strategic direction to the war room.
And, did Ahmad Maslan and the various branches of ground troopers manage to execute their instructions?
A source inside hinted the war room as a hot place to be with too many clashing egos that operationally led to it’s ineffectiveness. So did “too many generals spoil the battle”? Or were the generals suitable for today’s political warfare?
Read to hear Jahabar’s source complained:
“It was just a crapshoot. Their ideas didn’t work and their white list predictions were wrong,” a senior Umno divisional leader told The Malaysian Insider on condition of anonymity.
The war room had stuck to its prediction of BN winning between 145 and 150 federal seats and also getting back Selangor in Election 2013 although some senior BN leaders were privately doubtful of the figures.
And by noon on Polling Day, the war room had issued its “white list” of 118 federal seats it was sure to win, but some like Pasir Mas, Shah Alam and Lembah Pantai were lost, which some Umno divisional leaders said reflected the disconnect between the leadership and the ground.
Opps .. that 118 white list.
The subsequent part of the report could not be confirmed but it smells some spinning to fill up MI’s political agenda for the opposition offensive psywar. We grey out the following comment on Dato Zulkifli Nordin.
Poster boy of Umno’s insensitivities
The Malaysian Insider also learnt that Jamaluddin was behind BN putting Perkasa vice-president Datuk Zulkifli Noordin as their direct Shah Alam candidate despite his controversial remarks that offended Indians about their Hindu faith.
It was understood that Jamaluddin felt that Zulkifli’s candidacy would not be too much trouble as the latter had already apologised to the Indians for his remarks which he claimed were made when in PAS.
But sources said the strategist did not consider that Zulkifli would become the poster boy of Umno’s disregard for sensitivities of non-Malays.
“The most galling thing is they put Shah Alam on the white list because they thought the Malay majority there would support Zulkifli. How wrong they were,” said an Umno source, commenting on the strategy that backfired.
On the contrary, Jahabar.
In our opinion, BN’s machinery could not match the well oiled PAS’s Shah Alam machinery already with the head start for Zulkifli to fight.While a large portion of PAS members, supporters and sympathisers are not keen to the liberal ways of Khalid Samad, they are reminded of Zulkifli’s excessiveness in his days with PAS. It is compounded further by the insufficient time for Zulkifli to shed the misperception of a political frog changing partisanship for political convenience.
Back to further comment on the war room:
“There are conservatives with a big ‘C’ and there are conservatives with a small ‘c’. The strategists just did a desktop analysis but did not figure that there are new voters apart from substantial number of Chinese and Indians there,” he added.
He explained that the desktop analysis done by the war room contributed to the belief that BN would do well and even get back its two-thirds parliamentary majority in Election 2008.
“You can’t assume that a Malay majority seat will go back to you or think that you can share the Chinese and Indian votes and later predict you win big nationally and Putrajaya,” said the source.
The subsequent part of the report is something new.
Outsourced strategies
Another Umno source noted that BN had also outsourced some of the strategy to public relations and branding experts such as APCO’s Paul Stadlen and TV3’s Datuk Seri Ahmad Farid Ridzuan but it appeared to no avail.
Stadlen has been Putrajaya’s main contact with the international media while Farid had been seconded from TV3 parent, Media Prima Bhd, to the Prime Minister’s Department for the past few years.
“They were spending money on local newspapers with shrinking circulation and TV stations that did not appeal to the young. What a waste of time and money,” he said.
It has been estimated that BN had spent more than RM100 million directly and indirectly for the massive media campaign that encompassed print, television, billboards and online sites for Election 2013.
.. in world of Hypermarket The source, who had been involved in election campaigns since 1999, said the war room had experienced people such as Idris, Tengku Adnan and Jamaluddin but they were incapable of fighting the new media or adapt strategies to attract votes from the younger generation.
“The mainstream media had blacked out the opposition but in the social media, whatever bad we or the mainstream media did, it was amplified online and made people hate us further. As it is, they don’t even read or watch what we do,” he added.
We also held the view that the communication strategy was too MSM-centric and lack understanding in the mechanics and proprietary knowledge on blog and social media.
One source told us that there is a study done and it mentioned the most effective political campaign instruments are ceramah and pamphlets “distribution game.”
Both are areas BN is not strong.
