Opposition’s attack in GE14 will be worst ever, Zahid warns Umno members

KOTA KINABALU: Umno acting deputy president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the opposition will go all out to defeat the Barisan Nasional government in the coming election as it could be their last and best chance to do so.

“They tried in the past two elections. In 2008, we were complacent after we won big in the 2004 election and the opposition took advantage of that.

Then in 2013, they tried again. They said all kinds of things to convince the people to vote for them and we almost lost because we failed to respond.

“This time around, they will attack us worse than before because this is the last election which would determine our future,” he said when launching the Sabah Umno Social Media convention here today.

Zahid, who is also BN deputy chairman, said the oppositions was highly proficient in using social media to influence the people because some of them were trained overseas in countries such as Taiwan.

Also, he claimed, outsiders who were anti-Umno and anti-BN had joined in the attacks.

Social media, he said had become a platform for the opposition to create perceptions that went against the BN and the government.

“Even though these accusations are ‘fake news’, they are taken as truth. And then this news is shared among friends or in groups and it becomes viral,” he said.

He urged Umno and BN cybertroopers to come out and start correcting the negative perception created by the opposition against the BN.

He reminded them that the people were the decision makers who, right now, had the general perception that the BN was guilty of crimes, thanks to the slander on social media.

“Rumours and slander are now treated as truth. We are being unfairly punished by the court of public opinion. And we need to put a stop to this, hence the creation of this Umno IT Bureau,” he said.

The Sabah Umno IT Bureau, he said, was the biggest election machinery in the country, compared with all the other states.

He instructed its members to start using social media to correct misconceptions which could cause the people to go against the party.

More than 80% of voters, he said, were on social media and an overwhelming 92% of voters aged between 18 and 29, mostly first-time voters, had social media accounts.

He urged Umno members to engage these first-time voters online, especially because it was highly unlikely these voters would want to attend political talks.

“If we win big in this coming election and if it is thanks to the work done by the IT Bureau, don’t worry, I know how to repay them,” he said. -FMT