Mixing negative and positive campaign styles can work, says analyst

 

James Chin has disagreed with Liew Chin Tong that a negative style of campaigning won’t work as he says voters tend to remember messages in such tones.

PETALING JAYA: Pakatan Harapan can effectively lure votes by having a mixture of both negative and positive styles of campaigning as a strategy for the 15th general election (GE15), says a political analyst.

James Chin, a professor of Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania, disagreed with DAP strategist Liew Chin Tong and political scientist Wong Chin Huat, who had recently said that PH should move away from a negative style of campaigning using old narratives.

Chin said a negative style of campaigning works as voters tend to remember messages in such tones, adding that it has been backed by studies on elections in Malaysia and other countries.

“Having said that, it is also true that the most successful political campaigns employed both negative and positive styles,” he told FMT

Citing the last general election Chin said PH’s positive campaigning with “A New Malaysia” narrative and the opposite of “going after the kleptocrats” focusing on 1MDB and Najib Razak worked fine as it led to the historical defeat of Barisan Nasional (BN).

Negative campaign could backfire

However, Azmi Hassan of Akademi Nusantara acknowledges that even though PH could effectively lure voters towards it by constantly attacking Umno and BN in its negative style of campaigning, it may backfire this time.

He said if PH constantly paints them as the major enemy that should be defeated in GE15, it is in a way portraying the coalition as a strong one that is likely to win the election.

“It may give a message to the fence-sitters not to go out and vote because BN will win anyway,” he said.

He said that such voting decisions by the fence-sitters would pose a danger for PH, adding that it should thus stay away from mudslinging and rhetoric-styled campaigning and focus on policy-centric issues to win over voters. - FMT