OBSERVING GE13 IN KEDAH

Arrived in Alor Setar, Kedah this afternoon with wife and all of my four children who are on holidays. The aim is two-fold. Firstly to be together with the family away from home while celebrating belated Ummu's 14th birthday; and secondly, to observe the 13th General Election in Kedah tomorrow.

My wife and children are at the Pekan Rabu at the moment while I myself am staying in hotel working to meet some deadlines. The works are quite delayed as I have to be recently in Ban Nua, Thailand for ISDEV Language Camp and later on in Medan and Prapat in Indonesia for the 6th International Workshop on Islamic-Based Development (WAPI-6) and 5th International Conference on Islamic-Based Development, as well as for ISDEV Academic Tour respectively. Together with me to Ban Nua were 12 ISDEV lecturers and postgraduate students while to Indonesia 51 of them.

PAS seems to be a liveliest party in Alor Setar, with a lot of banners and posters as well as PAS members and cars roaming around the city. In Penang, on our way out to Kedah, we saw BN banners and posters overwhelming the banners of the ruling DAP and PKR.

It is quite difficult to guess who will win the 13th General Election tomorrow. Reading their respective papers and speeches, both BN and PR are confident to win. But one thing obviously observed is the bias portrayal of the direct BN campaign in almost all mainstream media. I am afraid this will backfire the BN, as the mainstream media campaign for BN really insults the intelligence of thoughtful citizens. However, the same also happening in PR bias campaign in the internet. The nature of their reporting is almost the same as the BN campaign.

All in all, both parties seem attempting to win the heart of the Malaysians through whatever channels available to them, and most of them in both parties seem to attempt a win by exposing the evils of their political enemies. It is really difficult to choose a candidate that endeavours to win by his own strength, not by exposing the weaknesses of his political enemies.