Monday, October 23, 2017

Move On, Pundits Tell Pakatan After Apathetic Anti-kleptocracy Rally', The Malay Mail Online, 16 October 2017

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 16 — Pakatan Harapan (PH) should offer its alternative policies on living cost issues instead of harping on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) in its rallies, political observers said.
Addressing the lukewarm turnout at the Opposition’s anti-kleptocracy rally last Saturday, the analysts suggested the federal Opposition pact would likely gain more traction by switching gears and focus on policy matters rather than continue the blame game.
“[The poor turnout at the rally] signals that the pact cannot ride on 1MDB alone,” Penang Institute’s Ooi Kok Hin told Malay Mail Online.
“They have to offer a coherent alternative, a radical new narrative and paradigm shift,” he added.
Like Ooi, Oh Ei Sun also said PH should talk about things the coalition can offer if it won federal power.
“People are impotent to do anything about 1MDB, hence a sense of resignation sets in. They could instead talk about better times after GST is repealed,” the adjunct senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore said.
But the political analysts also cautioned against using the turnout at rallies as a gauge of public support.
Sivamurugan Pandian, an analyst with Universiti Sains Malaysia, said the lower than expected crowd at the rally might have created a dilemma for PH, but cannot be used as a yardstick of its voter support.
“We cannot generalise or make this as a yardstick to measure support among the Opposition,” he said.
Oh also concurred that a large turnout at rally does not guarantee votes during elections.
“But small turnout usually indicates apathy in general,” he said.
Organisers of the rally had initially projected a turnout of 30,000 people, which they later lowered to 10,000 in the week ahead of the gathering.
Their much-touted evening assembly at Padang Timur in Petaling Jaya, Selangor last Saturday only drew an estimated 5,000 plus people at its peak. Also noticeable then was the number of older people compared to those in their 20s attending the gathering, a stark contrast to previous rallies such as the Bersih protests.
PH chief secretary Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah acknowledged the anti-kleptocracy rally this round had relatively less youths and said his side will “studiously” look into the matter.
Saifuddin said several questions must be raised on this and among others, he added, include the relation between poor youth turnout and the high number of unregistered young voters and whether they preferred streaming the rally from the social medias than going down to the ground.

Read more at http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/move-on-pundits-tell-pakatan-after-apathetic-anti-kleptocracy-rally#6KxDmYRQY4GWldJ3.99

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