BARISAN Nasional (BN) needs to win big in the 15th general election to be dominant in Putrajaya, to ensure that important decisions can be implemented easily, caretaker Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said. 

He said BN’s victory, coupled with the cooperation of allied parties from Sabah and Sarawak, would also end the feeling of “instability” and the need to rely on other parties.

“Now, although I am the prime minister, BN only has 42 seats in the government. While it is true the opposition supported me as prime minister, but we (BN) do not feel strong. It always makes us feel unstable.

“The opposition has signed a memorandum of understanding, but if they don’t support us in parliament during the voting, we can’t win. We are hoping for their votes. So the best thing is not to rely on others, but ourselves to decide the country’s direction,” he said.

Ismail, who is also Umno vice-president, said this when opening the Bera Umno Wanita, Youth and Puteri meetings at the Bera District Council Convention Hall today.

BN has to win big to create a stable country, he said, adding that with the various criticisms and attacks made against him, including by party leaders in the government, it would be difficult for him to run the country. 

“If the situation prolongs, there’ll be more criticisms and pressure,” he said, adding that it was also one of the reasons that made him seek the dissolution of parliament to make way for the general election.

He said the dissolution of parliament was a signal to all BN election machineries to work hard to ensure victory for the coalition.

They need to dominate social media to disseminate the government’s messages and narratives and to respond to all the slander by the opposition parties, he said.

“We have to dominate social media, more than the opposition. They (opposition) only have simple content, but an interesting one, and recently, they produced a song, which is trending. So, we also have to be creative,” he added.

“We have to answer their accusations on social media. In the last general election, we lost because we didn’t respond to their accusations. Prior to that, like during the 2004 general election, the people didn’t look at social media that much, now everyone knows and there are various WhatsApp groups,” he said.

Ismail reminded the division’s party election machinery of the more difficult task they will face in the coming general election as all parties would focus on the Bera parliamentary seat, as the incumbent is the prime minister.

As such, he said, all parties should work together to ensure a bigger majority for BN, more than the 2,331 majority votes it secured in 2018.

They should also ensure BN retains the Guai and Kemayan state seats and recapture the Triang state seat from DAP, he added. – Bernama, October 15, 2022.