KUCHING: The opposition front will not lose any sleep over the state Barisan Nasional’s new media unit (Unit Media) which is described as the much-needed ‘punch’ to hammer the opposition for incessantly hurling baseless allegations.
State Parti Keadilan Rakyat chief Baru Bian said he had no qualms such a step would be taken by BN if it truly intended to refute what the opposition would say.
“This is a democratic country with laws to govern our behaviour and speech,” he said in a short messaging service (SMS) when contacted yesterday.
The Ba Kelalan assemblyman hoped that the BN media unit would not simply defend the BN for the sake of politics.
“Defend the truth, not the person or party. If the opposition are not telling the truth by all means expose them, and if need be, take them to court,” he said.
State DAP chairman Wong Ho Leng meanwhile said that his party did not fear the media unit “as truth will prevail”.
He, however, said that information disseminated by the unit might impact rural voters as their
sources of news were limited.
“The BN knows the rural voters are gullible and that is the area the unit is targeting to hoodwink,” he said.
Wong, who is also Bukit Assek assemblyman, believed that information spread by the unit would not work in urban and semi-urban areas as they were able to filter all the information received.
“The BN, especially Sarawak United People’s Party, has tried its dirty tactics in the last state election and they met their Waterloo,” he said.
It was reported yesterday that Jemoreng assemblyman Abu Seman Jahwie had said that online technology had a monstrous arm span and could be easily used to keep people posted on the latest happenings and right all wrongs painted by the opposition.
UMB Sarawak, headed by PBB Youth information chief Abdul Aziz Adenan is primarily meant to counter the opposition’s onslaught against BN leaders and policies.
Aziz was quoted recently as saying that the whole idea was to ensure the BN retain all the current seats held by the four state BN component parties in the next general election.
He was also reported to have said that UMB would use all available cyber tools such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter to wrong-step the opposition.
Even SMS would be deployed whenever deemed appropriate.