A bit on soundbites from Johor over tea

Had tea with an old friend yesterday afternoon.

The guy is from my gang in Johor back when we were defending the state for the last general election in 2013.

He's sorts of my senior and I respect him very much.

Even though out of politics now, my friend still receives credible intel from the ground, especially in Johor.

I have not seen him for quite a while, so initially I was not really sure why he called me out for tea.

It turned out that he's worried about Johor BN's preparations for the coming general election.

Basically, his worries were almost the same as what I wrote in this previous post,

Can Khaled do what Ghani did in handling a Malay tsunami?

Well, actually his assessment was even slightly worse than mine.

He said the possibility of Pakatan Harapan capturing half of the Johor's 26 parliamentary seats is very real.

The opposition coalition already have six - Gelang Patah, Senai, Bakri, Kluang, Batu Pahat and Pagoh.

Click on the link to my previous post above to know the other constituencies in Johor which were at risk of falling to Pakatan Harapan.

My friend said BN's preparations for the coming general election in Johor so far was not even close to the level of what were done during the same period in the run-up to the 2013 polls.

He felt that MB DS Mohamed Khaled Nordin and his team have not been on the ground enough and Khaled's visits to the parliamentary constituencies earlier this year, said to be in preparation for the polls, were mere touch n go affairs.

Khaled visiting Johor Baru parliamentary constituency early this year

"They can't just go to a constituency for a few hours, look around a bit, listen to a briefing by the district officer or someone like that and consider that as preparing for the general election," he said.

My friend also believed that there were not even proper follow-ups for those visits.

He said he was told that another round of similar "gerak gempur" visits will be launched by Johor BN soon but he felt even that is not going to be good enough.

Using fancy or fearsome soundbites and nothing much else is not going to win elections.

Just theorising and inventing catchy slogans are also not good enough.

They came out with a lot of those lately.

Well, making noise and looking tough is easier than really thinking properly and doing the actual work.

I'm always of the opinion that nothing can replace sustained hard work on the ground as the best way to win elections

That should had been started right after the last general election.

A bit too late now, I guess. So much time wasted.

In many cases, chasing individual interest seemed more important back then..

Sudah ada kuasa sikit, mahu pulun jadi kaya la pulak. Tak apa, pilihanraya lama lagi.

I wrote several times about many with that attitude right after the last general election.

Now they suddenly realised that there's not much time left even if they really want to do those real works. So, make noise lah a bit here and there. Make it sounds as if they are doing work.

Anyway, back to my old friend. I was surprised that he seemed more pessimistic about BN's chances than I did.

He said feedback from the ground have not been very good at all.

I'm very sure that he has not turned to the other side, but he even believed that Pakatan will likely win in Kedah.

He said BN leaders are making too many mistakes even now, which I agreed.

Too many own goals.

For one thing, I believe they got it all wrong from the start with their handling of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

They shouldn't have whacked the handsome old man the way they did. It only made things worse for them.

Many succumbed to their ego and ended up shouting on top of their lung with no one actually bothering to listen to them.

And what with that full page articles in newspapers supposedly written by MBs, which were actually their speeches written by I don't know who? How much did they pay for that? Did they really think people read those stuff?

What to do. Those are already rice turned to porridge cases.

Now I think they are making another mistake - they underestimated Dr Mahathir's ability to get the opposition parties to work together.

He's doing exactly that now.

The more time they give him to do that, the more dangerous it would be for BN.

Ignore this and I think BN will be in serious trouble.

But, then again, what would I know....I'm just an insignificant anonymous two-bit blogger, right?

My blog is devoid of facts, said some.

True also, my blog doesn't have charts, what.

Well, never mind. Doesn't make much difference to me what most people think about me and what I wrote.

I just write whatever stuff that crossed my mind which made sense to me.

Okay, that's all.

Cheers.