Politicians hold weighted roles, with many expectations to live up to, seeing as they live under scrutiny of the public.
Photo: My News Hub
Based on the Malaysian Opposition Parties Strategic Communications Survey 2019, results indicated that Khairy Jamaluddin, who is also popularly known as KJ, took the spot as the most popular and most trusted opposition leader.
Conducted by Citrine One in collaboration with CALLMARK Solutions, the respondents consisted of 1,115 people nationwide, with the aim of gauging the public’s opinion on communication style and its effectiveness used by the opposition party and its leaders.
“KJ’s popularity and trustworthiness signals the days where head of parties gaining most popular votes are gone. The people seemed to move towards voting based on how vocal the leader is as well as their clarity of thought while communicating and being consistent with their communication. Moreover, the period the survey was conducted was when KJ was actually silent after Dato’ Seri Najib became the advisor to UMNO,” said Ivlynn Yap, Managing Partner and Crisis Communication Lead Counsel of Citrine One Sdn. Bhd.
Photo: Malay Mail
Falling behind KJ to hold second place was former prime minister Dato’ Seri Najib Abdul Razak. While this is surprising given the controversies that surround him, there is still significant support for him from the urban crowd, given that a majority of the respondents were from Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. In third spot was Dato’ Seri Tuan Guru Haji Abdul Hadi.
The leaders were selected based on how vocal they were, along with clarity in thoughts while speaking, and consistency (which is key!) in communication. Trustworthiness and honesty were least selected by respondents, and this is an indication that the leaders need a lot of improvement in these areas.
According to the survey, UMNO is the most popular opposition party at 69%. PAS got second place at 55% with MCA following closely at 52%. These parties were selected based on their vocal nature, consistency in communicating, and clarity when communicating. Being convincing and trustworthiness were the two traits that scored the lowest.
17% of respondents said they found the opposition leaders’ communications strategies to be racial, which indicates divisive politics. Meanwhile, 15% of respondents said that the parties are vocal, but 14% said they were confusing. Inaccuracy and inconsistency also fell into the mix.
When respondents were asked about what they would like the opposition to discuss, education received the highest score at 74%, followed by cost of living at 72%, and corruption at 67%.
The results of the survey also indicated that 52% of the respondents felt that the opposition parties only addressed issues that are of personal interest to them. 29% said it looked like they had their own agenda to fulfill, while only 19% felt that the parties were genuine.
What are your thoughts on this?
By: Celestine Foo
