MALAY politics is very much grassroots-driven, more so than its Chinese and Indian counterparts. While affected by national issues as much as the next guy, winning over the Malay vote cannot be easily done via a top-down approach, rather, it would be a painstaking process that takes effort, time and patience.

Pakatan Harapan needs to realise that a large percentage of the Malay-Muslim swing in the last election were protest votes against Najib and the goods and services tax. Almost immediately after the elections, many of these turned voters suffered buyer’s remorse in delivering what many perceived as an overkill – a virtual Umno’s wipe out.

A series of brave but risky appointments after the election followed by an aggressive, racial campaign by a desperate and regrouped opposition, and a series of gaffes and blunders by a government still finding its footing, convinced many of these voters, even turning some fence-sitters, and the less patient of the electorate who were willing to give PH a chance to deliver, but weren’t willing to wait too long.

The reforms that PH is trying to put into place – encouraging freedom of speech, removing punishment for speaking out, re-democratising the Internet, and providing a fair platform on mainstream media for those opposed to the government – only makes the efforts to combat the opposition propaganda, more difficult. 

To make things worse, the machinery for disseminating information is nowhere near as mature as the well-oiled one in place during the past administration. The government part of the machinery is still finding its footing, unsure who can be trusted or what needs to be done, while the other end of the information relay – political parties, allied organisations – are themselves not yet properly structured to get the government’s message accurately, and in a proper tone, to the average citizen.

In the same respect, the feedback mechanism is not working properly either.

The government definitely needs to buck up on its communication methods and channels.

But political parties and their supporters need to double up their efforts as well, if surviving the next election is anywhere in their long-term strategy.

Communication, however, is as much bottom-up as much as it is top-down.

Politics is all about perception, and one of the damaging perceptions eroding PH’s support among Malays is that Chinese and Indians are rude and growing arrogant, and challenging the special status of Malays and Islam in this country. Anecdotal and often unrelated facts are often used to prop up this accusation, including recent appointments in the civil service, and posts on social media.

This sort of social venom can quite easily be neutralised. In their everyday communication, members of PH parties interact with this same electoral group who are suspicious of their party leadership. 

Working with their local reps, they can go down to the ground and approach the Malay majority areas (which is now no longer off-limits to them because of thugs and government party loyalists in the past), and conduct programmes beneficial to these communities – poverty reduction and eradication, social initiatives, community dialogues and so on. Even what little they know of government policies and programmes can be relayed more effectively here than the false news spread on social media. Positive and direct communication also makes it harder for others to manipulate facts, in other words, the reverse of how the previous government conducted its campaigns.

When sufficient trust is built, community programmes can move beyond race, religion or even class, to one that targets an entire neighbourhood.

Winning over Malay-Muslims is also about understanding apprehensions the community has, and how walls were built between them. For example, if a job does not have a specific dietary requirement, a real language requirement, adding a simple “All Malaysians are welcome” at the end of the ad, and really meaning it, would help change the mindset that “Mandarin speakers” is just an alternate version of Bumiputra, but for Chinese.

Pakatan and their supporters worked very hard to bring down what they believed was a bad government. They will have to work as hard if not harder, to prove they are not the same, and defend that hard-won victory more than one term. – May 29, 2019.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on earth, and that a motivated people can do far more good than any leaders with motive.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.