By Niza Shimi
There was a time when the only source of political information was mainstream newspapers. Most would buy from street vendors or have their dailies delivered to their homes. My father subscribed to New Straits Times and Berita Harian.
Unless you physically attended a political ceramah, there wasn’t anywhere else to obtain news about candidates during elections. Perhaps that was when candidates would often go knocking on doors to introduce themselves.
But in 1990, the 8th general elections (GE8), Utusan Malaysia (Utusan) played a central role in determining the winner of an election. I can still remember the mounting political tensions then. It might have been the first time I voted as I had recently returned home to Malaysia.
Not that I knew what was happening. Life for a young adult is just too hectic. But the newspapers would be waiting when I got home and I was a keen reader. Television airtime was limited. If you missed it, there was nowhere to re-watch the news.
But 1990 was when I learnt that politicians will stop at nothing in order to win an election. Sometimes, even one photograph placed strategically on the front page of a mainstream newspaper on election eve is enough to swing the voters.
This happened in the 1990 general elections when incumbent (Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad was challenged by breakaway Parti Melayu Semangat 46 (Semangat 46 or S46) that was headed by the popular former finance minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, better known as Ku Li.
Ku Li had a falling out with Dr Mahathir and the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). Following the internal power struggle, Ku Li established S46 in 1988.
Wong Chin Huat wrote in The Sun that the 1987 showdown between Mahathir–Ghafar (Baba)’s Team A and (Tengku) Razaleigh (Hamzah)– Musa Hitam’s Team B was the first schism which saw competition for all positions within UMNO, from president to supreme council members.
Wong elaborated on the convoluted history of power struggle within UMNO that led to the formation of Semangat 46.
I cannot remember much of it but I do recall talk was rife that Dr Mahathir might lose the 1990 elections to Ku Li. Would we get a new PM in 1990? It felt likely.
However, on the eve of election day there appeared on the front page of Utusan a blown-up photograph of Ku Li wearing a hat with a cross symbol, the Kadazan singah. It was meant to shock and it did.
As Wong writes, “Having full control of the media, Mahathir shrewdly turned his crisis into opportunity. A photo of Razaleigh wearing a Kadazan native headgear with a cross–like design was splashed over the front pages of Malay dailies and television screens.
“The popular Kelantanese prince was accused of selling the Muslims to the Christian dominated PBS (Parti Bersatu Sabah).”
Wong added, “The strategy worked. S46 was completely wiped out in the West Coast while the DAP failed to win more seats in the 1990 elections”. All because of a photograph?
Bulletin Sabah reported that former Utusan group editor Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin (Zam as he is better known) had written in his 2013 memoirs “Saya Bukan Menteri” that the public was so angry on seeing the photograph that they flooded the Utusan office with telephone calls.
Zam said the photograph of Ku Li wearing the head wear was printed into poster size inserts of Utusan published in October 19, 1990 with the caption, “Oh Tuhan Jesus Christ Selamatkan 46” (Lord Jesus Christ, Save Semangat 46). GE8 was held on October 20 and 21, 1990.
Newspapers such as Utusan were a powerful political tool. There was no alternative media. Some political parties had weekly newsletters. There was no internet. Radio and TV airtime was limited, even more so for opposition parties.
But those newspaper monopoly on information days are gone. The internet opened up a whole new world, an information explosion if you will. It takes maturity to sift through real and fake news. If a photograph like that had appeared today, would today’s voters be as gullible?
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