PKR needs new strategies?

PKR must strive to consolidate its position and enlarge its membership base while it devises new plans on how to lead an assault on BN.

COMMENT

One of the major tools used by Barisan Nasional in the recently concluded (or not) 13th general election was the government controlled media, so called the mainstream media (MSM) and it damaged Pakatan Rakyat’s chances in remote areas.

What the citizens in townships and cities across Malaysia have is the internet as the alternative to the MSM, but that too has showed its limits to a certain extent, since it cannot reach those who are not virtually connected.

In the remote areas in Sabah, Sarawak and in the peninsular villages plus the areas where Pakatan is not allowed to campaign such as the Felda areas, the internet does not seem to be as popular as the local TV1, TV2 and TV3 plus the 4,5,6,7,8,9 and 14 which were also abused during the electoral period.

Then we have the penetration powers of Utusan Malaysia, the Star and other MSM newspapers which were in full support of BN, demonising Pakatan in the process and not giving the opposition any chance to present its criticism of the government or its projects for a better society.

All through 2012, the opposition had problems penetrating the villages in several states and it was an accepted fact among Pakatan elements that this would hurt their chances of gaining more seats in Parliament.

PKR was even more aware of the problem, knowing that it could not depend entirely on PAS and DAP was in an even worse situation with regard to Malay majority areas in the villages.

PAS, as it was proven during the 13th general election, was in competition with PKR and DAP in many seats and went to great lengths to ensure that some Pakatan candidates fail to get elected altogether.

The hope among these PAS elements was that by doing so, they would kill PKR-DAP’s chances of getting more seats while they would help their party get more seats at the federal level.

With such an attitude, it is comprehensible that PKR elements on the ground in many areas felt difficult to penetrate some of the darkest and most pro-Umno territories.

PKR and Pakatan had little problems in getting the support of the urban folks and that they will do even better in 2013, but the real problem was how to get the message to the hardcore, fixed deposits and diehard Umno elements.

Some students, in their efforts to enlarge the scope of Pakatan’ penetration, tried to enter the Felda and other kampung areas but were chased off by Umno reps. Their leaflets and Buku Jingga were seized.

At times, the authorities were roped in to stop the students and activists from distributing opposition literature in the remote areas, at least as claimed by Pakatan.

New strategies

Pakatan, in particular PKR, has to devise new strategies. And why PKR? This analysis is about PKR’s difficulties to penetrate those remote fixed deposit areas.

The access is being blocked for PKR and made more difficult by the weakness of some of its partners.

PKR must start thinking on its own, in some subtle ways, in order not to disrupt the pact it has in Pakatan but nothing can stop it from being a matured party and organizing its own PKR campaigns.

First of all, it must go into a membership drive in remote areas and how is it going to do so? It has to persist in knocking on the doors in those areas and it has to establish its own branches altogether, similar to PAS.

That is, it does not have to think that it can share PAS branches in order to get its candidate to be accepted but it has to have its own branches with its executives and that will make it easier to breach the uncharted territories.

Every chip in the block of the Umno’s fortress in the kampungs will someday bring the barricade down and that must be the entire philosophy behind PKR’s new strategy.

PKR has its Suara Keadilan paper, but since this is a political organ, its targeted by the authorities as an element of disturbance that should be allowed to penetrate these deeper areas in the Umno fortress. Thus, KR must devise another plan – perhaps by creating videos – that could be smuggled into these areas?

That is because the PKR is the party that can change the thinking of the people as it has impacted on the DAP and the PAS in many ways, changing their focus and their policies along the way.

There are other ways of reaching out to these voter banks and in the five years to come, PKR must ensure that it has done the ground work with its own foot soldiers assailing these territories incessantly.

It is not futile to state again that every small chip taken away from BN’s huge block of power will signify its downfall in the long run. And it will take a long road to reach the target, not short cuts.

With this in mind, PKR as a party, must strive to consolidate its position and enlarge its membership base while it devises new plans on how to lead an assault on BN and Umno’s fortresses but this time around without too much compromise to please its political partners.

KL-based Amir Ali works for an Indonesian NGO called the Warisan Melayu Riau, which is based in Bengkalis, Riau.