Malaysia’s 12th General Election: Bloggers To Turn The Tide?

Since news of Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announcement of the dissolution of the Parliament, the Malaysian blogosphere has been abuzz with posts talking about the impending election. If the sentiment of pings in blog aggregators is a measure of the popularity of the incumbent party, things are truly not looking good for Barisan Nasional.

Many blogs that pinged Project Petaling Street on the election are critical of the fact that the Prime Minister made an about turn on his announcement a day earlier that he would not dissolve the Parliament today. They have also advised the electorate to cast their ballot wisely neither openly throwing their support for the Barisan Nasional nor the coalition made up of former opposition parties but we all sort of know where these bloggers will mark in their ballot papers, do we not?

The question is how much influence does the Malaysian blogosphere has, or the respective bloggers have for that matter, in influencing the votes? Some of the people that I spoke to offered that it may have a bearing on urban votes but rural votes are another story altogether. Whatever it is, how effective bloggers and blogs are in swaying support and bringing in the votes in this general election will all be known in due time. My take is that the real battle is still out there in the real world. The reach of blogs in Malaysia is still very limited to have a meaningful impact on the election . What say you?