SG BESAR POLLS Billboards attacking PAS and BN have been said to have popped up in the Chinese-majority area of Sekinchan on the fourth day of campaigning for the Sungai Besar parliamentary by-election.
Pictures of the billboards have been distributed via WhatsApp mobile messaging application since morning.
One billboard merged the faces of PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, MCA chief Liow Tiong Lai and Umno president Najib Abdul Razak into a kind of triple Siamese twin.
The image was captioned in Malay and Chinese with the slogan: "BN, PAS Sehati Sejiwa, Rasis Rasuah Sama Sekali" (BN, PAS One Heart One Soul, Racist and Corrupt One and All).
In the background is a photo of Hadi holding the infamous giant mock keris during his party's recent muktamar and the logo of 1MDB and the words "Skandal RM4.2 billion".
The second billboard spotted in Sekinchan sported the picture of Sungai Besar Umno chief Jamal Md Yunus when he was leading the anti-Bersih Red Shirt rally superimposed on a picture of him hugging Umno's candidate for the parliamentary constituency Budiman Mohd Zohdi.
The billboard carried the words "Panggil Cina babi tidak salah," (It is not wrong to call Chinese pigs) in Malay and Chinese, attributed to Jamal who had argued that it is not insulting to call the Chinese by the name of the animal as it is not sensitive to them.
On the design of the third billboard is a clever word foil to the ruling coalition's "BN Menang Rakyat Senang" campaign tag line. It depicted the words "BN Rasuah, Rakyat Susah".
This poster showed a gentleman in a suit with wide lips seemingly similar to a national leader walking away with a huge pot of gold, while the rakyat had to shoulder the weight of a boulder labelled GST, rising cost of goods and national debts.
There were no markings or wordings on the billboards to link to any party though all of them carried a logo of Amanah next to a cheque mark.
Reverse psychology
Some of the billboards have orange (the Amanah party colour) strips with Chinese characters on them asking all to vote for Pakatan Harapan.
In an immediate response, Amanah denied being responsible for the billboards.
"We don't have enough money for our own billboards; even when it comes to flags we are far behind as we are a new party and have to buy new flags. They (our opponents) can recycle their flags from five years ago.
"We don't have the money for this kind of rubbish, this can be reported to the Election Commission (EC) enforcement officers," the party's strategy director Khalid Samad said.
Speaking at a press conference, Khalid also said that it was not the work of any of the Pakatan Harapan parties.
"We don't engage in this kind of mudslinging, though those who put them up may be doing 'black ops' work for BN to incite the anger of the Chinese against us for allegedly using controversial issues.
"I think if any party wants to lodge a report to the EC, it should be Jamal himself," he said.
"You guess is as good as mine. It could be reverse psychology by Umno to get reporters to ask Amanah. We don't know as it had nothing to do with us, it could have been put up by SB (Special Branch) or Perkasa for all I know," he added.
DAP leader Teresa Kok, who was also at the press conference with Khalid, denied knowledge that her party had anything to do with the billboards.
The appearance of the billboards coincided with the views of analysts who noted that the well-oiled DAP promotions team is on the ground and going all out to assist Amanah in the PAS-splinter's maiden electoral run.
