GE13: How BN lost the battle of perception
For the 13th GE, the Opposition set out a strategy of portraying BN administration as a corrupt, evil, racist and inept government while seeking to position and elevate PR as Apostles of good governance, anti-racism, anti-corruption, democracy, equality and human rights. To support their campaign, PR came up with the catchy war cry of “UBAH” and the grammatically awkward and incorrect “Ini Kali lah”.
FMT LETTER: From Calvin Sankaran, via e-mail
To an objective and intelligent observer of our divisive and highly charged political scenario, the result of our 13th General Election wouldn’t have come as a surprise. The deep fault lines across ethnic lines, the anti-establishment mood prevalent among the educated urban populace and political leaning of social media-influenced youths were all there to see even to amateur watchers of the Malaysian sociopolitical landscape.
Even without the benefit of opinion surveys and statistical analysis, the mood of the electorate was quite easily discernable and election result predictable. The real surprise was to see the surprise expressed by the leaders and strategists of the ruling coalition of Barisan Nasional (BN) over the result.
So what had contributed to the worst ever result for BN? Was this due BN’s internal problems and weaknesses or contributed by externally-driven factors? As with most problems in life and business, it is my belief this result was a combination of a complex mix of both internal and external factors. However, it is also true that the root causes can be categorisCalvin Sankaraned to a few key reasons and a long list of minor ones.
In analysing and searching for key root causes, we need to look at the demographics of groups that BN had received lowest level of support – the Chinese, urban middle/upper middle class and the youths. Based on my analysis the root causes for lower level of support from these demographics can be pinpointed to two key reasons. One – Pakatan’s highly damaging political campaign and two, BN’s lack of effective strategies and countermeasures to respond to and neutralise this Pakatan’s hate propaganda.
German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had famously defined politics as the art of the possible. While this was probably true 300 years ago, however in this Age of Information, politics is the War of Perception.
It doesn’t matter how you have performed, the core principles and philosophy you believe in, your capability and capacity to deliver promises, personal and party credibility or even the rationality and deliverability of your manifesto. The only thing that matters is the perception about you that exists in the minds of the masses.
If you succeed in implanting a positive perception of you, from then onward you own the electorate’s collective psyche. For they will only see and hear what they want to see and hear – irrespective of the persuasiveness of argument and the strengths of facts to the contrary. To these people, truth is defined as news reports and facts that confirms and reinforces the pre-existing perception that has been deeply ingrained into their consciousness. Anything that doesn’t is automatically rejected as propaganda and lies.
For the 13th GE, the Opposition set out a strategy of portraying BN administration as a corrupt, evil, racist and inept government while seeking to position and elevate PR as Apostles of good governance, anti-racism, anti-corruption, democracy, equality and human rights. To support their campaign, PR came up with the catchy war cry of “UBAH” and the grammatically awkward and incorrect “Ini Kali lah”.
That many Malaysians, including those from highly educated and upper middle class background, were completely taken in by PR’s campaign and voted for the Opposition is an excellent illustration that politics is indeed the War of Perception.
So how did PR managed to infiltrate such completely false notions into the collective psyche of these voters? The strategy and tactics of Pakatan in waging this War of Perception are not difficult to analyse or understand for these have been deployed, tested, fine-tuned and proven in numerous political battlefields by political master strategists such as Hitler, Goebbels, Lenin, Stalin, Osama Bin Laden and Machiavelli.
To implant negative perception of BN in the minds of electorate, PR propagandists spread lies and half-lies and made outrageous, vicious charges to inflame emotions and propagate hatred. It was irrelevant these accusations and rumors were irrational or completely unsupported by reason or facts. What mattered was the constant and consistent barrage of attack using simple but repetitive lines of attack – BN as euphemism for corruption, racism and mismanagement.
This initially started in the PR-owned or friendly news portals where these accusations were machine gunned on daily and non stop basis. Knowing that most people only skim the headlines and do not bother to read the contents, these news portals skillfully presented news with highly misleading headlines while burying the truth deep into the stories.
The fundamental journalistic and ethical principle of presenting both sides of story was completely ignored. Even when presented with denials by BN, their statements were published late, given low prominence and/or placed in such way that it was easy for readers to miss it.
The latest and most sinister mode of attack is the use of social media – truly the Wild, Wild West frontier of the Internet – and the mobile network (SMS/MMS/WhatsApp). Some of the most vicious and dangerous accusations and rumours were spread via Social Media and SMS/MMS/WhatsApp.
Another interesting aspect of Pakatan’s campaign is the extensive outsourcing of political hate campaign to (ostensibly independent) NGOs to accord a semblance of respectability and deniability in case things go wrong. Many of these NGOs are either closely allied or formed solely to further Pakatan’s political objectives.
No sane person would consider NGOs such as Bersih, ABU, Bar Council, Merdeka Center, REFSA, NIAT, Pemantau, SMM, ANAK, Tindak Malaysia, CIJ, Himpunan Hijau, WAMI, Aliran, Penang Watch, NIAT, MoCS, KOMAS, SABM, MIBA, Suaram, etc., as even remotely independent or objective.
