WITH the campaigning period ongoing, candidates for the Johor state election are doing their best to entice voters to cast their ballots in their favour.
One candidate though, got a little creative with the messaging that the Election Commission (EC) intervened, in the name of “protecting racial and religious harmony”.
In a billboard placed by DAP candidate for Jementah state seat, Ng Kor Sim, the left side depicted toll hikes during the administration of Barisan Nasional (BN), showing a car entering a road with a Tyrannosaurus Rex (T-Rex) awaiting to swallow the vehicle.
By the right side, the billboard shows how the Pakatan Harapan Government had reduced toll charges by 18%, urging the people to vote for their coalition’s candidate.
However, the EC was not too pleased with the billboard and called for it to be removed.
Taking to Facebook, Ng said that EC officials came forward saying someone had lodged a complaint against the billboard and told them to cover the left side showing the T-Rex.
“When we asked for reasons, they said it was due to BN being ‘depicted as a dinosaur’. We rejected the argument as we found the reason flimsy and urged the official to tell us which election law did we breach.
“Surprisingly, they later said the billboard was touching racial and religious sensitivity, which naturally, we rejected as well as it did not contain such elements,” she added.
Unrelenting, the EC official then claimed the billboard was seditious, an argument which Ng and her team rejected as well.
“This is a non-issue. During campaigning, every party and its candidates will raise issues of public interest. In this billboard, we raised the issue on toll hikes, which was continuously raised during the BN administration.
“When Pakatan took over federal administration in 2018, we managed to reduce toll rates by 18%, which had eased the people’s burden.
“As such, I believe the billboard was not in breach of any electoral laws,” Ng mentioned.
T-Rex stays where it is
When contacted, Ng’s campaign manager Khoo Poay Tiong confirmed the matter, adding EC officials were making an issue out of the T-Rex depiction of BN.
“After arguing our case, they later asked us to remove the BN word from the billboard. This is ridiculous as it’s just a poster making comparison between BN and Pakatan’s rule,” he told FocusM.
Khoo, who is also Kota Melaka MP, said that his candidate was merely raising awareness of the toll hike issues, which was directly related to the rise in cost of living.
“We don’t agree with the EC’s interpretation of the matter and had decided not change the billboard,” he remarked. – Feb 27, 2022.
