SHAH ALAM, 8 Nov: A Short Message System (SMS) text ‘calling’ for voters to vote for PAS in the 13th General Election (GE-13) as a ‘ticket to heaven’ was not actually sent by the PAS election machinery, instead, it was sent by Barisan Nasional (BN).
The message also claimed that choosing UMNO would cause the individual to enter hell, it it was clearly aimed to show that the message was purportedly sent by PAS, thus giving the impression that it is an extremist party.
The BN machinery tactic to gain votes in a dirty manner, despite being read by some of the people, has yet to be proven.
However, such tactics were ultimately proved by the Coordinator of Youth Solidarity Malaysia (SAMM), Badrul Hisham Shaharin, when Muslims in Malaysia were set out to celebrate the new year of the Islamic calendar; 1435 Hijra.
The tactic was uncovered when a member of SAMM in Kedah received two different messages from the same number, 019-5791297, which i believed to have been sent by the BN campaign machinery.
“The first message was received during the GE-13 campaign period and I believe that the forgot or assumed that no one would notice the second message before the recent Ma’al Hijra celebration.
“For mobile phones that are using the Android system, every SMS received will cause the previous message to also be displayed if it is not deleted.
“Indeed, God wanted to show this when the SAMM member did not delete the first message and when they sent the second message, automatically the previous message was displayed. This is known as ‘sepandai-pandai tupai melompat’ (as clever as the squirrel hops, it will one day, eat dirt),” said Badrul Hisham when contacted by Selangor Kini yesterday.
The first message received in May, says, “Think of heaven when voting. Vote PAS to enter heaven, vote Umno to go to hell. PAS is Allah’s party (Hezbollah), Umno is the devil’s party”.
The second message received before the Ma’al Hijra read, “Salaam. Happy Ma’al Hijrah 1435H from Barisan Nasional “United Together in Moving Forward”.
Badrul Hisham said that BN should have thought of a smarter tactic compared to the defamatory text.
“Voters are now smart, many know this tactic but BN likes sending tactics that instigates PAS ulamas. The same method was used to instigate PAS leaders by sending SMS messages in the recent Bukit Limau By-Election,” he said.
