GE15 monitor singles out Siti Zailah, Ganabatirau among candidates resorting to ethnoreligious rhetoric in campaigns

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 8 — An initiative to monitor the use of racial and religious rhetoric in the 15th general election has identified four candidates so far resorting to the method, four days into the campaigning period.

The initiative called #KamiNampak (Malay for “we see”) said its volunteers have caught Perikatan Nasional’s candidate for Rantau Panjang, Datuk Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff from PAS, and Pakatan Harapan’s candidate for Klang, V Ganabatirau from DAP, as among them.

“We urge for candidates to campaign on policies and practices, rather than the inflated use of race and religion as a selling point,” said its coordinator Jason Wee from civil group Architects of Diversity (AOD).

“The use of the race and religion card is shortsighted and hurts the ability of different communities in Malaysia to trust each other.”

The initiative pointed to Siti Zailah sharing on her Facebook a video emphasising non-Muslims as enemies, with the caption mentioning “Muslims are obligated to vote to ensure non-Muslims do not become leaders as they will ruin Islam.”

“#KamiNampak categorised this as falsely manufacturing or associating a political, economic or social threat with a racial or religious group,” it said in response.

Meanwhile, Ganabatirau was found uttering xenophobic remarks against foreign workers in the Meru Market in an interview with state-owned SelangorKini.

Gerakan Tanah Air’s Fazli Mohammad from Pejuang was also called out for using the racial card in his campaign, where he was quoted saying that the locals are worried about the deductions of the Malay population will result in them having unaffordable housing in the future.

At the same time, Parti Sarawak Bersatu’s Priscilla Lau was also highlighted for saying that “A vote not for Sarawak is a vote for Malaya”, which the youth group categorised as motivated use of negative stereotypes of a racial or religious group.

#KamiNampak is a campaign by AOD as part of the Rapid Response Team of Centre for Independent Journalism’s 15th General Elections Social Media Monitoring campaign.

It involves over 60 youth volunteers monitoring social media accounts of election candidates in all 222 parliamentary contests across Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.