The general election fever can already be felt nationwide after nomination day last Saturday, and all the political parties have two weeks to woo voters before next weekend's showdown.
On top of the "war" of banners and posters we see everywhere now, the real fight this time, in this connected era, is in cyberspace.
Voters, all 21,173,638 of them according to the Election Commission's (EC) numbers, are now glued to their mobile devices day and night to get the latest news, gossip, talks and acts from news portals, parties and politicians.
Out of that 21 million voters, 14.29 per cent are people aged 50 to 59, 17.2 per cent are those aged 40 to 49, 22.1 per cent are aged 30 to 39, 21.7 per cent are aged 20 to 29, and 6.5 per cent are aged 18 to 20.
These are the bulk of the voters who are tech-savvy and have their phones all the time .
Voters aged 50 and below make up 67.5 per cent of electors, and these are the hardcore Internet users today, who get all their news and information online, including on this general election.
While political parties may get a few hundred people to go to their face-to-face "ceramah" at night, now they can get thousands if not millions of eyeballs on whatever they talk about and promise to their would-be constituents if they post it to social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and others.
Today, you don't have to attend political ceramah to listen to what the contestants have to say.
From the comfort of your sofa or bed, all the feeds from the politicians you follow, the news portals you subscribe to, your WhatsApp groups, etc, will come knocking on your phone's screen.
You can watch and listen at your leisure, or even forward them to your circle of friends or community.
Or, you can just type # (hashtag) the name of the politicians or contestants you want to see campaigning on any of the social media platforms, and you'll get information from all sorts of sources on them.
This, in a way, can help you analyse and decide whom to vote for, if you have not made up your mind.
And for the politicians and parties, social media is their best weapon to get their message across.
That's basically how social media has changed the game, and most politicians and political parties know this.
And all, I bet, have social media strategists and teams to help them, with some even engaging all the platforms as they know different voters prefer different platforms to get their news and information.
However, the voters, in the excitement of reading and listening to the contestants, must also exercise some caution as some postings they see may not be true or misleading, as this campaign period is also a time for those involved to hit out at their rivals in their effort to get votes.
Whatever it is, make a careful judgment and be a wise voter.
Happy voting!
The writer is the associate editor of NST, Life & Times
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times
