Bersatu is mulling legal action against the Prime Minister's Office and Cambridge Analytica, as well as its parent company SCL Group, and its Southeast Asia head Azrin Zizal.
Bersatu strategic director Rais Hussin said this is over the "fake news" allegations that the party’s deputy president Mukhriz Mahathir had engaged CA and SCL Group to help BN's 2013 election campaign in Kedah.
"We are tracking this fake news diligently, and we will not hesitate to take legal action against the perpetrators of such fake news, upon due consultation with our legal team," Rais told Malaysiakini.
The spotlight has fallen on CA’s activities of late, when a UK Channel 4 investigative report caught one of the firm's executives saying that the countries in which it had conducted it election operations included Malaysia.
According to its website, CA had helped BN in Kedah during the last general election.
However, the PMO on Tuesday released a statement saying that neither BN nor the government had engaged the data analytics firm, and said it dealt directly with Mukhriz, who was Kedah BN election director at the time.
This was then reiterated in a statement yesterday by Azrin.
Mukhriz (photo) has denied all allegations.
Rais, however, asked why it was the PMO that issued a statement first, before CA or SCL Group.
"It is as though CA and SCL may be close to PMO," he claimed.
Rais also questioned whether Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had used any of his RM2.6 billion political donation to fund CA’s activities.
"If it’s a yes, say yes, if no, say no," he said.
The Bersatu strategist then claimed that videos are already surfacing playing up people's fears against the opposition, similar to those that CA allegedly produced for the 2017 elections in Kenya.
"There are videos claiming that the DAP controls the economy, and now wants to controls the Malays and so on.
"These videos are starting to come out, and this is what they call ‘deep fear’," he said.
In the Channel 4 sting, CA’s global political managing director Mark Turnbull was caught on camera talking about its misinformation campaign against opponents of Kenya president Uhuru Kenyatta.
He said the company’s job was to discover its target audience’s deep-rooted fears.
"It's no good fighting an election campaign on the facts, but actually it's all about emotion,” Turnbull had said. Mkini
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