Subliminal attacks against Lim Guan Eng

The Malaysian Insider’s Target: Lim Guan Eng by Whistleblower 57 reported that:

Team Najib have identified ... [Lim Guan Eng] ... as a main target, a real problem for them in the coming general elections.

In the power circles in Putrajaya Lim Guan Eng is a problem not only in Penang but in urban areas and even in East Malaysia where the feedback is that the Penang CM is popular.

So the strategists in Umno have decided that Lim must be kept busy fending off attacks. He must be kept off balance and so worried that he will not leave Penang to campaign for Pakatan Rakyat.

Aiding and abetting Umno in this task are some turncoats in DAP and PKR and Chinese businessmen. They have been promised a big payoff.

We know that, though I have to ask your opinion whether the following has been part of Najib’s strategy, though admittedly it was written in October last year?

In Jocelin Tan’s column in The Star Online, an article titled New look, old style had this to say about Guan Eng:

Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and his wife turned up for the State Deepavali open house in traditional Indian outfits, and Betty Chew even sported a pottu. But Penang being Penang, most of those at the do did not bother to dress up and some were casual to the point of sloppiness in their Bermuda pants and slippers.

As a result, Lim and his wife ended up looking somewhat overdressed and, well, rather bourgeois. On the other hand, his deputy Dr P. Ramasamy, who wore a white short-sleeved shirt and a long dhoti, resembled a Tamil proletariat from the waist down. But from the waist up, he looked like he was on the way to a DAP meeting.

Lim’s Indian outfit was not the only thing that attracted attention. The DAP leader has undergone an image makeover. His trademark “Brylcreem look” is history and the heavily oiled, ah pek haircut has given way to a more updated layered look. His jet-black hair colour has also miraculously turned a more natural shade of brown. Okay, maybe it had nothing to do with miracles but everything to do with his hairdresser.

Even his wife sported a more sleek and stylish hairdo in the same soft brown shade as her husband.

In between his heavy schedule and the full-time war of words with his opponents, Lim has managed to squeeze in time for a makeover.

The quest to look young, also known as vanity, is no longer exclusive to women, and Lim, who is 50 and starting to look like his father, must have decided it was time to turn back the clock. But the image consultant behind his makeover should also advise him to ditch his street-fighter mode for something more sophisticated in keeping with his status.

Lim is terribly conscious of being Chief Minister; his Twitter name is cmlimguaneng while on Facebook he is CM Lim Guan Eng. But the way he carries on, it seems like he cannot make up his mind whether he is the Chief Minister or the Penang opposition leader.

Newspapers are known to have political allegiance or political leanings, even those in Australia and the USA, except that in Malaysia we are one notch better, where virtually all Malaysian mainstream media are owned by the Barisan Nasional.

Thus our media owe more than political allegiance; they owe their bread & butter (pay checks) to the BN boss wakakaka.

While there’s nothing wrong in criticising the policies, plans and programs of the opposite side (namely, DAP Lim GE’s Penang government), it’s astonishing Jocelin Tan has gone to such great lengths to sneer at the looks, dressing, grooming and personal ego of Lim Guan Eng and wife.

I believe that such comments could be considered as subliminal political attacks.

Subliminal means operating below the threshold of our consciousness, usually by employing stimuli (such as adverse remarks against Lim's personal self) insufficiently intense to produce a discrete sensation (overt and immediate dislike or disapproval against Lim) but often being or designed to be intense enough to influence the mental processes or the behaviour of the individual (hopefully the voting inclination of the readers).

It’s not unlike planting seeds of anti-Lim/DAP poisonous plants in our fertile Malaysian minds, with such criticisms of Lim’s looks, dressing and grooming, and waiting for the plants to bear poisionous fruits at the right moments like GE-13.