"The spirit of unity among the leaders and party members must stick in the soul, not only from the mouth," said Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

He said the solidarity which became steadfast in achievig victory at the next general election should also be strengthened from now by eliminating the negative perception of other parties.

"Our actions must be accompanied by intention.. how it is on stage, the same should also be true behind the stage," he said in his speech at the Rakyat Dungun assembly programme, Dungun today.

Over 5,000 people attended the event where he also praised the leadership of Menteri Besar Ahmad Razif Abdul Rahman who always placed the people as a priority.

"If we have strong resilience and unity, even attacks using the nuclear bomb, or the most sophisticated weapons, they would be repulsed... opinions and perceptions might be different but insyaAllah with the existing unity and integrity we can brush aside the perception of outside parties. We rebuild the unity.

"We feel beaten... the previous problem was unity and we were not bothered because we felt the unity could be bought with money, could be acquired through development, without dominating the mind and soul," he said.

Ahmad Zahid said the party leaders should change their mindset and it is time to use the technique of dominating the hearts and minds of the people to know and appreciate what the government had done.

He also reminded that the 'cah keting' culture no longer existed among those who placed importance on power.

At a press conference later, Ahmad Zahid said he hoped the trend and mould which was built by Ahmad Razif in strengthening the party's unity could be emulated and was confident that Terengganu politics would be stronger and capable of solving several of the past problems.

He said, solidarity was not only important in Terengganu but also in all 222 parliamentary constituencies to ensure the people could feel the positive impact and capable of dismissing the negative perception deliberately created by the opposition.

"Those who give an antagonistic opinion in the social media or even some psychological warfare wanted to destroy the existing strength.

"In my opinion, it is difficult to achieve the success but when success has been built, it is more difficult to maintain it," he said.

'Don't be fruit bats'

In addition, Ahmad Zahid also reminded party leaders to continue assisting the people and avoid from being labeled as helping family and friends only.

"There are some leaders only go down to the field during a feast, death and during Friday prayers, some are like 'bats who come during the fruit season only' and some go down five years once... but there are also MP's serve every day," he said.

As a result, he hoped all party leaders were able to keep pace to dispel negative perceptions and hatred so that the minds and hearts of the people, especially the youngsters, were not poisoned.

- Bernama