THEY have held mega-rallies and gone on roadshows nationwide in the past year.

Now, with about a week left before polling day on May 9, Pakatan Harapan leaders are going to make house calls, campaign via videos, and send their big names where they sense the winds of change are strongest.

Their target in this laser-guided onslaught: undecided Malay voters.

A high-ranking PH leader said Malay voter response has been good so far, but the opposition coalition still has to work hard to make sure that good crowds at gatherings translated into votes.

“In BN’s stronghold of Malacca for instance, the Malays are responding well to our campaign. This has never happened before in past elections.

“So on May 4, PH is sending its top leaders to Malacca,” said the PH leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

In the last general election in 2013, the opposition won two parliamentary seats and six state seats in Malacca. In contrast, Barisan Nasional won four parliamentary seats and 22 state seats.

To take advantage of the more responsive mood on the ground in Malacca, Friday’s ceramah will see Parti Warisan Sabah president Shafie Apdal sharing the stage with top PH leaders, including Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, and Lim Guan Eng.

The opposition feels it stands a good chance in Malacca, especially after think-tank Invoke Malaysia published a report last month saying the state was ripe for the taking.

Some believe that a “Malay tsunami” can happen, but many pundits believe that any swing of Malay voters to the opposition would not be big enough to wrest control of Putrajaya from BN.

The PH leader said the coalition’s election machinery nationwide started making house calls to convince Malay voters to reject the government coalition led by caretaker prime minister Najib Razak.

Another source from PH said the video campaign was quickly gaining traction among voters.

“Look at how the short video of Dr Mahathir and two children has gone viral. It touched so many,” said the official, referring to a video in which the former prime minister admitted to making mistakes when he was in power.

The video has so far been viewed by 116,000 people on YouTube.

The PH official said they would concentrate on several parliamentary seats, such as Shah Alam, where voter demographics were altered following the redelineation exercise.

“It is the same situation for other seats like Permatang Pauh. It is not impossible for Nurul Izzah Anwar to lose the seat,” he said. – May 2, 2018.