Lim Sian See
TMJ has a right to express his personal opinion about Tun Mahathir.
His highness’ view of Mahathir is similar to the view of his father, the Sultan of Johor.
However, supporters of Pakatan Harapan and Mahathir will not be happy and claim that the palace should not be interfering in politics.
But when TMJ had reprimanded certain UMNO leaders in the past, these same Pakatan supporters would applaud him and will say he is not interfering in politics and has a right to voice his personal opinion.
Right now, Pakatan is reeling from TMJ’s frank personal opinion and it will certainly affect Pakatan negatively.
The only possible option that Pakatan supporters and their machinery can do is to mobilize them to leave negative comments on TMJ’s post – hoping to use their own comments as an excuse that TMJ’s views are not acceptable.
Those who would be the hardcore supporters of Pakatan and Mahathir and does not reflect the general public – especially in Johor where many have benefited from the rapid development in that state and holds a high regard for the Johor royalty.
On TMJ’s post, there are already 18,000 shares and 25,000 likes – compared to about 12,000 comments.
Many of these comments would also come from other states or from the urban strongholds of Pakatan too – thus will have little effect and tells little about the actual sentiments in Johor over TMJ’s comments.
MalaysiaKini’s BM article which republished TMJ’s statement in full had also received 15,000 shares too.
People normally share articles if they agree with that view – thus the high number of shares in less than a day will be worrying for Pakatan.
So, the best that Pakatan can do in reply to TMJ’s opinion is to put up a brave front and point to some negative comments.
Unfortunately for Pakatan, as the Sarawak elections in 2016 as well as the twin by-elections showed, social media comments from Pakatan is not a good indicator of who will win the elections.
Source: Lim Sian See
