Politics meet Technology: Malaysian party candidates required to have blogs
April 12, 2008
Kualalumpur, Malaysia (A P): CNN reported that all Malaysian party candidates who have applied for positions in the ruling party of Malaysia are required to setup a blog in order to govern the politicians who have ridiculed online politicking.
The Secretary General of the youth wing of the UMNO party, Abdul Rahman Dahlan, said that all the candidates who are competing for the positions of National Youth are required to have blogs for the purpose of introducing themselves and their plans ahead of the party elections to be held in December.
Lim Kit Siang, the leader of the Democratic Action Party has a famous web journal and there is no sign of any senior leader of UMNO having a similar kind of blog. But the judgment appeared to be aiming at countering the heavy losses suffered by the ruling National Front Coalition Party in the general election of last month, may be because they had underestimated the strength of campaigning online. The coalition has been dominated by United Malays National Party (UMNO). “All candidates must have blogs..if not, they are not qualified to be leaders,” Abdul Rahman told The Associated Press.
Formerly, the politicians of the party have commented that bloggers tend to spread rumors and lies, and a large number of Malaysian blogs consist of government’s critical commentary. But now, even Khairy Jamaluddin, the youth deputy has a blog, who had once compared the bloggers to the “monkeys that live by the laws of jungle.”
“The last election showed that we lost the cyber war. We need to embrace the technology now,” said Abdul Rahman. He also said that help will be provided to those party members who are not familiar with the creation of blog.
We are now seeing more and more examples about how modern technology and social networking really IS the wave of the future.
Staff Reporter
