BN admits uphill battle to woo Chinese, first-time voters

File photo of BN flags put up in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. BN is facing a tough task to woo young Chinese voters. — Picture by Saw Siow FengKUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — Weak non-Malay leadership has made it harder for the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) to court young Chinese voters, forcing its Malay leadership to work harder to win over the key demographic in Election 2013, say coalition sources.

First-time voters, who form 30 per cent of the total 13.3 million voters, are seen to be the kingmakers in the general election with the Chinese being the bulk of fence-sitters, according to a University of Malaya Centre of Democracy and Election (UMCEDEL) survey released in January.

“The leadership from the component is not producing leaders as good as Khairy Jamaludin,” a senior coalition leader told The Malaysian Insider, referring to the Umno and BN Youth chief.

“We need a strong Chinese leader, a Youth leader that the Chinese can idolise. BN is currently looking for that,” a source said. 

BN’s top Chinese Youth leaders are MCA Youth chief Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong and Gerakan Youth chief Lim Si Pin.

According to the UMCEDEL survey, the Chinese community forms the highest number of fence-sitters in the race category at 53 per cent, while Malay and Indian voters stood at 37 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. At 48 per cent, first-time voters took up the largest chunk of those who have yet to make up their minds. 

A Merdeka Center survey of first-time voters also showed non-Malays were ready to be represented by someone of another race compared to three-quarters of the Malay voters.

The “First-Time Voters Public Opinion Survey”, conducted between last November and December, showed more than half of new voters admitting to be political cynics but two-thirds felt Putrajaya listened to the people in between elections, suggesting the demographic was a toss-up between BN and Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

He (Khairy Jamaludin) is popular among the Chinese and Indian youth. You can see they love him if you gauge the response of those who attend his programmes. — Ibdil Ishak, BN Youth national secretary

Aiming to tap the demographic, BN Youth initiated several campaigns which included employment programmes called the BN Youth Job Fair and the popular Youth 1 Malaysia People’s Aid or BR1M 2.0, a one-off RM250 cash aid for singles aged 21 to 31 and earning a monthly income of below RM2,000. 

The BR1M 2.0 idea came after BN chairman and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak introduced the first BR1M, a one-off cash aid of RM500 for married couples with a household income of less RM3,000 and aged between 21 and 31.

Putrajaya’s cheap housing scheme under the PR1MA programme was also a result of a group session or lab conducted by BN Youth where several youth groups and think-tanks gathered to identify key issues affecting the country’s young voters.

The initiatives had proven to be popular. The BN Youth Job Fair attracted an average attendance of 10,000 fresh graduates while PR1MA, opened December last year, was oversubscribed. But despite its popularity, BN Youth conceded that the overwhelming response to the programmes may not necessarily translate to votes.

“We don’t know for sure. We can only tell on voting day,” Ibdil Ishak, BN Youth national secretary, told The Malaysian Insider. 

Ibdil, who is also Umno Youth chief for the party’s division in upscale Taman Tun Dr Ismail in Kuala Lumpur, however, said the wing was confident it could bank on Khairy’s progressive and multi-racial appeal to entice Chinese youth into voting BN back into power.

“He is popular among the Chinese and Indian youth. You can see they love him if you gauge the response of those who attend his programmes. 

“That is why you see his programmes are made under the BN banner and not Umno,” he said. 

But another BN source said the ruling coalition, including its Youth wing, was still catching up with the opposition in the social media battle. 

However, he believed BN Youth could still offset this through grassroots engagement, the primary campaigning method once election begins.

“We are still behind PR. It is not easy to go against negativity. People still want to read and believe the sensational stuff. But this will be tackled,” the source said.