Samy: MIC's new campaign tactics effective

MIC president S Samy Vellu is happy with the effectiveness of the party’s new campaign strategies employed during the Permatang Pauh by-election despite the Barisan Nasional (BN) being defeated.

Speaking to reporters after launching MIC Youth's new branch office at the party headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Samy Vellu said he personally evaluated the workings of innovative campaign techniques and is convinced of its effectiveness during elections.

"I have already assessed how our campaigning system worked in Permatang Pauh – but it (the promises made during campaigning) was not only for the elections," he said, adding that the party will implement the promises.

The new election campaign techniques were adopted in an attempt to woo back Indian voters after MIC's catastrophic performance during the March 8 national polls, which even saw Samy Vellu being ousted from his Sungai Siput parliamentary stronghold of nearly three decades.

Door-to-door campaign

Led by president, MIC campaign workers in Permatang Pauh went from door to door and among others, distributed groceries to the poor.

Thousands of free VCDs of popular movie songs intertwined with political messages were also part of the strategy to lure in the Indian community's support for BN.

However, despite the efforts by MIC and other BN component parties, PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim defeated his prime opponent, BN's Arif Shah Omar Shah, with a majority of 15,671 votes.

Meanwhile, Samy Vellu reiterated that MIC would keep the promises made to the Permatang Pauh community and is in the process of setting up a special division for the local Indian women, particularly a business unit for single mothers.

"We are going to continue with the struggle… these are all things that we have promised," stressed the former works minister.

"We will proceed with that in order to make people feel happy that the BN government actually carries out what it promises,” he added.

'Fighting psychological things'

On the by-election, Samy Vellu said the ruling coalition that many factors contributed to the ruling coalition’s defeat.

"We were fighting a lot of psychological things involved in the total elections – the campaign, the candidate and everything.

"So under the circumstances whoever is (the candidate, will be assessed) by their individual capability," he said.

"BN can help – Umno, MCA and MIC – can help… but it depends on how we dwell with the matters on how to get people to vote for us," he added.

Samy Vellu also explained that the defeat in Permatang Pauh was trivial because the constituency had always backed the opposition.

"Traditionally it is a constituency held by the opposition and I think this is a time (where) the people are too sensitive to too many things.

"I think the government has taken into consideration the various things that have happened. I think within three and half to four years we will be able to prepare ourselves to new challenges in the coming elections… and we will face the challenges," he said.

However, the MIC chief said the party is not going to wait for four years and has already begun acknowledging the upcoming challenges.

"I feel we cannot wait for the next elections to come. MIC has already started working after we lost the elections tremendously… that terrible loss that we had is taken into mind," he said.

Moreover, Samy Vellu said MIC is also planning to set up 750 Youth branches by the end of this year to garner support from the younger community and dispense aid for their progress and development.

'We want a united Malaysian nation'

Asked about the controversy regarding the Bukit Bendera Umno division chief Ahmad Ismail's degrading comments describing the Chinese as 'squatters', Samy Vellu refrained from commenting saying that the matter was 'closed'.

"We don't want to give life to matters of this kind… we want to have a united Malaysian nation.

"We don't want to divide ourselves into bits and pieces anymore… I think we have already suffered enough particularly in the last six months after the elections," he said.

"There are a lot of divisions amongst the communities, everybody wants to give their own comments as to what they think is best,” he added

Samy Vellu also extended his advice to community leaders. "We should think (the) best (for) the total Malaysian community rather than thinking of each individual community."