Main stream media featured in front page ‘Anwar has become a tool for DAP’. Just this example shows one two weapons in BN’s amoury to fight Anwar in Permatang Puah : first an implicit appeal to voters based on race that DAP = Chinese; Anwar a tool for DAP means a tool of the Chinese; second the lack of neutrality of Mainstream Media being used for propaganda purposes.

These are old well tried methods or ‘weapons’ that BN had successfully used for last 50 years to maintain the edge over voters’ sentiments and legitimacy to continue power.

The question is whether March 8th political tsunamy signals the paradigm shift continuing to Permatang Pauh to a rejection of this kind of politics of unfair level playing field due to control of the press, appeal to racial sentiments, attacking political opponent’s credentials by sodomy charges or otherwise.

Of course the stakes are high in Permatang Pauh. Superficially, it is a by election contest between Anwar and Arif Shah Omar Shah. Anwar said that it was also a battle between Anwar and the Malaysian government. One can also view it as a preliminary skirmish between Pakatan Rakyat versus Barisan Nasional in the eventual contest for vote of no confidence (if one is on the table). Likely this is not a battle between Anwar the man and the BN government machinery.

It is, it seems to me, really a battle between a new ‘idea’ for change of which Anwar epitomises and an old one based on well tried methods of appeal to race, control of press, under the belt personal attack of political opponent and money politics……

If amid all the sodomy charges, his accuser’s swearing in mosque, Anwar still wins by an even bigger majority than his wife in March, it simply means that the idea – the idea for real reform and change from moribund ways symbolised by BN’s methods – has arrived.

An idea whose time has come, if it really has come, will be difficult to fight even by an incumbent with all resources (money, control of media, police etc) at its disposal.

If such an idea – of change – has really seized the imagination of large segments of electorate, then Anwar will win by landslide.

What the BN fails to grasp is that they are really fighting against is this idea. They have concentrated on fighting the man Anwar who symbolise this new idea but not the idea itself.

The difference is this : by going all out to tarnish Anwar’s character as sodomite, they have hardly tarnished at all the idea of change that Anwar stands for and epitomises.

If people like the idea, they really don’t care whether Anwar were a sodomite or not – and even if they are conservative enough to care about about a candidate’s sexual orientation, they will simply choose not to believe whatever the other side puts on the table, factual or otherwise.

This is because the heart of it all is perception and perception depends on whether one likes the idea that Anwar represents. If one likes the idea, then even if the other side supplies ample proof that Anwar is a person of unreliable character and corrupt disposition, people who like the idea will simply either choose not to believe the evidence or choose to overlook it by sqaying Anwar deserves a second chance.

In my simple thinking, the BN has failed to grasp that they are not fighting really the man himself but the man as representing a certain idea whose time has come as the voting results of March 8th had shown and 26th August will reaffirm (if the exceptionally enthusiastic high voter turnout were any indication!)

If they (BN) has grasped this clearly, they would have tried to reinvent and clear their own backyard and political credentials with meaningful reforms – more in tandem with the new idea – then concentrating their fire power on attacking Anwar the man himself om personal level by well tried methods of media control, racial appeal, money politics etc that increasingly people are rejecting.