Poster war going at great guns in Hulu Selangor
Even before the campaigning for the by-election has begun, the poster war was already going at great guns in Hulu Selangor.
Even before the campaigning for the by-election has begun, the poster war was already going at great guns in Hulu Selangor.
KD Tengku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's first Scorpene-class that cost RM1.3 billion - and was temporary found unable to dive - and the scandal involving two stolen F5E jet engines have inspired Pakatan Rakyat to produce an eye-catching poster under the title of ‘Another BN's wastage programme'.
Judging from a
tour of the various parties' operations rooms, Pakatan appeared to have gotten off to an early start in the poster war by churning out three different types of posters outlining their election theme as well as attempting to pre-empt their opponent's attacks.
First, is the offensive poster which put a spotlight on the dodgy submarine and questionable jet engines issues as well as the alleged link between the media strategist hired by the federal government, Apco, with the Israeli Zionist movement.
Mahathir's harsh criticism of Umno last month, published by Malay-language tabloid Sinar Harian under the strongly worded headline of ‘Malays don't believe Umno anymore', had also been quickly turned into an ammunition against the BN.
T
he second group of posters are much more defensive in nature - they explain the issues where Pakatan is expected to come under severe attack such as the accusation that the Selangor government had refused to approve land for the construction of a university and Anwar's second sodomy trial.
Renowned Islamic scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who defended Anwar against the sodomy charge, is featured prominently in another poster.
The third poster introduces PKR candidate Zaid Ibrahim's background, highlighting his poverty-stricken background from which he rose to become a successful philanthropist.
BN playing catching up
On the other hand, BN which had been reeling from the candidate crisis - the result of a bitter stand-off between Umno and MIC - is obviously playing catching up.
On display is a new ‘BN party' banner - a sign that the ruling coalition is trying to introduce a more common campaign platform long successfully adopted by Pakatan.
There are three banners hanging outside the MCA operations room in Kuala Kubu Bahru, emblazoned with the ‘Please vote for BN party', ‘BN party unite the people' and ‘People first, focus on the target' slogans respectively.
Meanwhile, DAP has come up with its own posters which exploited the contradiction between Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's ‘1Malaysia' and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's controversial statement of "Malay first, Malaysian second".
The black-coloured DAP poster reads "1Malaysia, UMNO first".
Besides their traditional Chinese constituents, the DAP has also recruited a number of Malays to hand out leaflets at the Kuala Kubu Bahru mosque at yesterday's Friday prayers.
They were also giving away the Selangor government's newspaper, Selangorkini , and the party organ in the Malay language, Rocketkini .
Meanwhile, PKR's party organ Suara Keadilan also published a full-page interview with Zaid Ibrahim and his rags-to-riches background.
The latest edition of the newspaper was purposely held back until Zaid was officially picked as the Pakatan candidate for the April 25 by-election.
