— Ahmad Ashraf
The Malaysian Insider
Dec 01, 2012
DEC 1 — When it comes to talk, very few can match Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin. After all, he used to host a talk show. And today, he displayed his prowess when saying Umno is winning the battle for the hearts and minds of Malaysian youth.
However, the country’s “richest unemployed young man,” as dubbed by Lim Kit Siang, is just talking up his achievements.
Is Umno popular among the young? Khairy says results of the recent campus elections reflects youth acceptance of Umno, where 18 out of 20 elections were won by the pro-government Pro-Aspirasi groups.
Well, the government-backed undergraduates won in elections where rules were stacked against those linked to opposition. In Universiti Malaya and the International Islamic University, where attempts to influence results failed, the pro-opposition candidates swept to power.
Care to explain that, Khairy?
Also, why resort to social media to measure Umno’s popularity? Aren’t most followers fake or phantom accounts, especially in the Twitterverse? They are just eggs without tweets and set up on the same date with the same followers and following the same people.
Of course, you can say Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak has over 1.25 million fans on Facebook, and over one million followers on Twitter while Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim only has around 400,000 Facebook fans, and around 200,000 Twitter followers.
That’s what the statistics say. But have you seen the number of likes and dislikes for the recent Google+ hangout? Did you see the number of likes and dislikes for Najib until all YouTube videos of the event had to be made private?
It was embarrassing for the prime minister and the minions who had convinced him that he is popular. And now you say he is popular and that is proof the youth are backing Barisan Nasional (BN).
I had high hopes for you, Khairy, and in some ways, I still do.
So, please make full use of your foreign education and privileged birth by talking about issues that matter, not some kind of lame propaganda for Umno to thank you for the youth vote.
Don’t delude yourself and Umno into thinking you have the youth vote. You don’t. Work hard for it, as hard as Najib is going around the country to keep up support for BN.
Najib needs allies who can tell him the facts and not blow smoke into his eyes. He isn’t the Emperor with his new clothes with sycophantic courtiers. Get your facts right and go out there to get support, not blow your trumpet that the youth vote is with BN.