Nobody denies that politics is about championing ideals and good governance. And that is what political leaders want to be seen doing. The thing no one will admit to though is how dirty the battle for power can get.
It is during times like these when the date of elections get closer that the darker side of politics emerge in the form of psychological warfare (psywars) – intensified battles in the most populated media spaces (currently it is social media) to capture the hearts and minds of fence-sitters.
Judging from the kind of activity we’re seeing at news sites, Facebook, Twitter and personal chat apps since the announcement of the dissolution of the Parliament, it is obvious that thousands of cybertroopers have been hired and sophisticated technologies are being used to win the perception war.
You don’t need to look very far. Just observe the comments sections for news articles on media organisations’ social media accounts and see the psywars in action. More than half of those comments aren’t even made by real people, but bots and computers. If you read closely you will see that such comments carry standard ideologies and messages and use certain repeated words.
Why? Persuasive communicators know this - repetition is the best way to get something to stick in people’s minds. Psywar is also the reason at play pictures are used to shape a certain perception.
Harapan cybertroopers have been putting up pictures that show the start of BN related events taken from far where there aren't many people yet and putting them up with a close up image of the leader who was there.
If one were to do some search, you can easily find pictures that tell a completely different story - halls filled with thousands of people.
In contrast, Harapan cybertroopers do the exact opposite for their own leaders.
Shortly after the Harapan rally in Muar a few weeks ago, a bunch of pictures started making rounds. These included an image of a stage, then another image of a very huge crowd.
But unfortunately, that crowd picture is from GE13 because you can easily spot a PAS flag there. PAS, who usually attracts the Malay crowd and make up the numbers for Pakatan rallies, is not teaming up with Harapan in this election.
In reality, if you are actually in Johor, you will know that Harapan are struggling to attract the non-Chinese crowds.
Harapan supporters had to resort to old pictures to make people believe that their ceramah received overwhelming support.
And then there always is these scare-mongering tactics involving phantom voters – feeding into Malaysians' hunger for conspiracy theories of foreigners being brought in droves as phantom voters.
Such messages are repeated ad nauseam on social media so it is firmly planted in people’s minds.
But if in the last election, they picked on the Bangladeshis, it seems that the current flavour are Rohingyans.
My mother received a WhatsApp message containing a video of a man that doesn't look local and a Chinese voiceover that says he saw the 'Rohingyan' with an IC.
And I’ll tell you how effective this psywar tactic is. My mother who doesn’t really care about politics asked me if this was really happening and what was the country coming to.
At times, I wonder why the Opposition is propagating Bangladeshis and Rohingyans as phantom voters. If the ruling coalition had the intention to use phantom voters, wouldn't it make more sense if they were from China? They could easily blend in.
Remember how the Opposition supporters' dipstick of nationality was the ability to sing Negaraku and recite the Rukunegara? Their supporters surely won't be going around applying that test on Chinese voters and Chinese-looking voters.
But, kudos to the Opposition supporters and propaganda machinery.
Those are brilliant moves thus far that are targeted at creating an impression that the rakyat is not with BN and the support of the people are with Harapan.
This 'mind-conditioning' strategy worked in the last General Election and will work this time too.
Harapan suppporters want to imprint in peoples’ minds that BN is a party of cheaters and can never be trusted. They have nothing to lose anyway.
If the elections turns out in their favour, they win the elections, but if they lose, they already have their ‘insurance policies’ in place – seeds to poison minds
that BN cheated.
This is also an extremely good strategy that lays the foundation for the next election.
What is the outcome that we want, now? Be wise, Malaysians.