PH govt was weakened through use of social media: DAP strategist

(The Sun Daily) – Pakatan Harapan (PH) used social media to its advantage to win the 2018 general elections.

Last week, the very same tool brought its downfall, according to DAP strategist Liew Chin Tong.

Liew said that in 2018, social media users had turned against the Barisan Nasional (BN) to PH’s advantage.

This time, however, the tide turned against PH.

He pointed out that the subtle agility of social media to effectively disseminate fake news and the branding of DAP as racial and anti-Malay were among the major factors that brought the return of BN “through the back door”.

He said the impact social media has in efforts to disrupt governments was most evident in the run-up to the appointment of Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as the eighth Prime Minister after the PH government collapsed due to several reasons.

“The means used (to unseat the PH government) was to engineer defections and sow deceit,” he said.

Liew was speaking at a forum on ‘Anatomy of Failed States’ organised by the Penang Institute, a state think tank, here.

He said the DAP and PH did not have a chance to recover, thanks to some miscommunication of their own.

“But no matter how Muhyiddin may try to convince the masses, the fact remains that it is an illegitimate govenment,” he added. “And the people will not easily forget.”

For now, Liew said, the DAP will pursue various challenges to such a move and he expects the Parliament seating to be postponed to allow Muhyiddin a chance to form his government and to consolidate.

He also believed that the majority of DAP leaders do not think that former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed was the architect behind the fall of PH, claiming that it was a faction within Mahathir’s own party – Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) – that orchestrated it with support from BN.

As for DAP, Liew believed that his party remains united in the face of this coup and that he does not believed that its key leaders would defect as there is much more to be done for the country.

Political scientist Prof Dr Sivamurugan Pandian said that DAP has a history of conflict with the Malays so it was difficult for the socialist party to shake off such a stigma, especially when they entered the federal government.

The history was then used by certain quarters through social media to portray DAP as a party which is a Chinese chauvinist organisation, and this unsettled the Malay community generally, said Sivamurugan.