GE13 WATCH Barred from government-controlled airwaves and political party-owned newspapers, opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat has taken the old school route to spread its gospel to the masses.
Its secret weapon is the effective, old fashioned political roadshow, pressing flesh and slinging slogans on its tours.
Like rock stars meeting and greeting fans, this plan potentially gives Pakatan the means to reach people outside the Internet-enabled suburbia and the well-informed urban dwellers.
With GE13 around the bend, the coalition's delivery of mass ceramah tours may make or break Pakatan in its bid to win the minds of constituents that it cannot otherwise reach.
Its components, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim-dominated PKR, socialist party DAP and Islamic party PAS, have each successively unveiled their party war trucks and campaign buses as mobile ceramah platforms from as early as last year.
Other than official party cavalcades, Pakatan is vigorously using roadshows to target niche groups like Felda settlers, military veterans and servicemen, once thought of as hardcore BN supporters.
This is to highlight various issues that the opposition claims indicate the failures of BN, such as the listing of Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd that it calls "questionable" and the use of Armed Forces Fund Board (LTAT) funds in an apparently shady land deal involving a key Selangor Umno figure.
Pakatan-allied student groups have also been busy organising roadshows targetting BN strongholds, including Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak's parliamentary constituency of Pekan.
Blanket control over the media
While the BN-led Malaysian government does not come off as being openly autocratic and outwardly oppressive, as dictatorial regimes are, it does practise blanket control over the media, through laws and political ownership, in order to maintain its hold on what the people know, say and think.
Devices that have all along been very useful in keeping the BN in office.
Information, as they say, is power. Control over it is what has kept the BN leaders in the place that they both desire, and believe, to be theirs forever.
Pakatan's new, if not original solution, to BN's media hegemony threatens to unravel this web of control.
However, what became the BN's answer is pushing the coalition, and the government it leads, to the bounds of autocratic and oppressive governments. And, dare I say it, dictatorial regimes?
The BN, as recent events show, is seemingly shutting one eye, if not encouraging its more adventurous supporters, to disrupt the Pakatan roadshows.
Paints were splashed, rocks thrown, roads blocked and ceramah venues assailed by thuggish pro-government supporters throwing harsh words and wielding crude weapons, with violence less then delicately implied.
And, as seen in Pekan, roadshow volunteers were roughed up and chased away with weapons brandished.
Acting on orders from above?
It is not definitively known if the thugs acted on orders from above, but those doing the thuggery indeed seem to be BN supporters, with the authorities appearing slow to respond to their actions, thereby supporting suspicions of shady orchestrations involving the powers that be.
It would appear to be that the ruling coalition's answer to Pakatan's roadshows is the road rage of its supporters.
Indeed, the use of thuggish supporters to prevent Pakatan from entering BN-controlled areas is nothing new, with prior cases reported in Selangor and Perak, with one of these incidents taking place in a BN minister's backyard, no less.
The clashing of political titans may bring a new dimension to Malaysian politics, which had simmered under the surface before, but may yet boil over with the very real threat of political violence.
While much has already been said about this, what is interesting to ponder is how this will affect the electorate, campaigning for GE13 and the election itself.
Will it open the eyes of the rakyat to the crude tactics of one party, as opposed to the information outreach of the other?
Will the threat of violence create a new era of political campaigning, with well-armed convoys protecting ceramah tours, as when one of Anwar's bodyguards had to draw his weapon when tensed up by a pro-BN crowd?
Will we in the end degenerate into the quagmire of political violence, living in armed political camps and always looking behind our shoulders?
These, and more, are the real questions we have to ponder.
But most importantly, we should perhaps consider how we should respond to those who try to reach out to us with information and argument, as opposed to those whose let violence answer.
Either way what our answer may be will perhaps indicate how mature we have grown as a people, as the citizens of our beloved Malaysia.
Its secret weapon is the effective, old fashioned political roadshow, pressing flesh and slinging slogans on its tours.
Like rock stars meeting and greeting fans, this plan potentially gives Pakatan the means to reach people outside the Internet-enabled suburbia and the well-informed urban dwellers.
With GE13 around the bend, the coalition's delivery of mass ceramah tours may make or break Pakatan in its bid to win the minds of constituents that it cannot otherwise reach.
Its components, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim-dominated PKR, socialist party DAP and Islamic party PAS, have each successively unveiled their party war trucks and campaign buses as mobile ceramah platforms from as early as last year.Other than official party cavalcades, Pakatan is vigorously using roadshows to target niche groups like Felda settlers, military veterans and servicemen, once thought of as hardcore BN supporters.
This is to highlight various issues that the opposition claims indicate the failures of BN, such as the listing of Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd that it calls "questionable" and the use of Armed Forces Fund Board (LTAT) funds in an apparently shady land deal involving a key Selangor Umno figure.
Pakatan-allied student groups have also been busy organising roadshows targetting BN strongholds, including Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak's parliamentary constituency of Pekan.
Blanket control over the media
While the BN-led Malaysian government does not come off as being openly autocratic and outwardly oppressive, as dictatorial regimes are, it does practise blanket control over the media, through laws and political ownership, in order to maintain its hold on what the people know, say and think.
Devices that have all along been very useful in keeping the BN in office.
Information, as they say, is power. Control over it is what has kept the BN leaders in the place that they both desire, and believe, to be theirs forever.Pakatan's new, if not original solution, to BN's media hegemony threatens to unravel this web of control.
However, what became the BN's answer is pushing the coalition, and the government it leads, to the bounds of autocratic and oppressive governments. And, dare I say it, dictatorial regimes?
The BN, as recent events show, is seemingly shutting one eye, if not encouraging its more adventurous supporters, to disrupt the Pakatan roadshows.
Paints were splashed, rocks thrown, roads blocked and ceramah venues assailed by thuggish pro-government supporters throwing harsh words and wielding crude weapons, with violence less then delicately implied.
And, as seen in Pekan, roadshow volunteers were roughed up and chased away with weapons brandished.
Acting on orders from above?
It is not definitively known if the thugs acted on orders from above, but those doing the thuggery indeed seem to be BN supporters, with the authorities appearing slow to respond to their actions, thereby supporting suspicions of shady orchestrations involving the powers that be.
It would appear to be that the ruling coalition's answer to Pakatan's roadshows is the road rage of its supporters.
Indeed, the use of thuggish supporters to prevent Pakatan from entering BN-controlled areas is nothing new, with prior cases reported in Selangor and Perak, with one of these incidents taking place in a BN minister's backyard, no less.The clashing of political titans may bring a new dimension to Malaysian politics, which had simmered under the surface before, but may yet boil over with the very real threat of political violence.
While much has already been said about this, what is interesting to ponder is how this will affect the electorate, campaigning for GE13 and the election itself.
Will it open the eyes of the rakyat to the crude tactics of one party, as opposed to the information outreach of the other?
Will the threat of violence create a new era of political campaigning, with well-armed convoys protecting ceramah tours, as when one of Anwar's bodyguards had to draw his weapon when tensed up by a pro-BN crowd?
Will we in the end degenerate into the quagmire of political violence, living in armed political camps and always looking behind our shoulders?
These, and more, are the real questions we have to ponder.
But most importantly, we should perhaps consider how we should respond to those who try to reach out to us with information and argument, as opposed to those whose let violence answer.
Either way what our answer may be will perhaps indicate how mature we have grown as a people, as the citizens of our beloved Malaysia.
HAZLAN ZAKARIA is a member of the Malaysiakini team.
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