SELANGOR — An advertising campaign by the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN)has stirred controversy, with observers and opposition leaders criticising the attempt at fear-mongering.

Since Sunday, full-page advertisements have appeared daily in The Star — a national newspaper that is majority owned by a BN component party, the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) — suggesting that when Malaysians vote for the Democratic Action Party (DAP) in the coming elections, they are as good as voting for the “fundamentalist” Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS).

The advertisements appear to ride on DAP’s close shave last week, when the Registrar of Societies (RoS) said that it will not recognise DAP’s leadership. The RoS’ decision resulted in DAP coming close to having its candidates contest under the PAS’ banner. Nevertheless, DAP was subsequently given the all-clear to use its logo in the elections.

On Sunday, an advertisement alluded to the incident: “The power behind DAP is PAS. First their flag. Tomorrow their fundamentalist principles?”

The next day, another advertisement read: “Chinese culture and Chinese education will be in jeopardy under PAS-controlled DAP.”

Selangor voters TODAY spoke to said they were unimpressed by the advertisements. “I don’t think that’s very inspiring ... That’s not the way you want to advertise yourself,” said Mr Segar, 49, a regional manager in a shipping company.

DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang said in a media statement on Tuesday that the series of advertisements was an “attempt (by MCA) to fish for votes ... (and) to scare Chinese voters by attacking PAS and DAP through baseless allegations”.

Yesterday, DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua told The Malaysian Insider that the advertisements might backfire on MCA. “Indeed, a vote for DAP is a vote for PAS and, at the same time, a vote for PAS is a vote for PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat), and a vote for PKR is a vote for DAP. We’re together in a coalition,” Mr Pua said.

PAS Deputy President Mohamad Sabu added: “The ads are very good … I hope BN continues to propagate the slogan. No vote for BN.”

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was campaigning in Johor, said this was “an obsolete, old trick” by the BN. “This has all been done before in the past,” he said.

Speaking to TODAY, MCA candidate Teoh Chee Hooi, who is contesting in Cheras, Selangor, distanced himself from the advertisements. He was present, along with DAP candidate for Serdang Ong Kiang Ming, at a political forum at UCSI University in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

Mr Teoh said he had not seen the advertisements. But he said he disagreed with fear-mongering. “Any attempt to disrupt disunity or to create hatred among people should be stopped at first instance,” he said.

One of the advertisements used a recent quote by Dr Ong where he said “the consensus is that the party which contested the most seats in the state gets to name the Mentri Besar and, in the case of Johor, that party is PAS”. The quote was placed next to a map of Johor planted with several PAS flags.

Dr Ong said MCA took his comments out of context, to portray the wrong impression that “PAS is going to plant its flags all over Johor”.

WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY TEO XUANWEI