BarisaDAP e-Campaign to complement urban outreach activities

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Media Statement 
by DAP  
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(Petaling Jaya, Wednesday) : THE Democratic Action Party (DAP) is to launch a concerted e-Campaign to engage constituents, especially young voters and supporters, in the high Internet penetration areas to complement its grassroots outreach activities in the running up to the general election. 

“For this purpose, an interactive portal will be launched soon as a one-stop platform to assist in disseminating the party’s campaign messages in relation to the general election,” said Jeff Ooi, the party’s General Election e-Campaign Director. 

“The portal will also act as the virtual press centre, where profiles and on-ground campaign activities of its candidates nationwide, press releases and high resolution images for printing, will be available for download by the members of the media,” Ooi added. 

“You will see the use of pervasive consumer technologies, like PDF, MP3 and YouTube that the young Internet users are familiar with, in our e-Campaign,” Ooi said.  

“We will also present specially-produced vignettes to help us project our election messages,” he added.  

Ooi, a prominent blogger who made a high-profile entry into the DAP recently, said the e-Campaign portal will also serve as a platform to recruit election volunteers and for fund-raising. 

“Currently, we have a mechanism where public donations to the DAP can be made by cash or cheque deposits through the Public Bank, or by credit card,” Ooi said. 

The details are available on the party’s official website at: 

http://www.dapmalaysia.org/newenglish/ta_contribution.htm

“We plan to simply the donation mechanism further when we launch the e-Campaign portal,” Ooi said.

“As a political party, DAP does not involve itself in getting rent-seeking contracts and commercial activities like the Barisan Nasional,” Ooi said.

“Conflicts of interest like those taking place in the BN had resulted in bad governance, and corrupt practices that remained unchecked had actually ruined the country.” 

“One the other hand, we need financial support to sustain our existing campaigns for democracy, exposing corruption, promoting socio-economic justice and monitoring government's excesses,” he said. 

Ooi also emphasized that the party needed funds to engage policy researchers to assist in policy formulation that is forward-thinking, relevant and effective in resolving problems faced by Malaysians. 

“As a part of the e-Campaign, we are appealing for public donation so that we can continue our political training for members, and externally, to continue serving Malaysians in public awareness campaigns on issues that impact the wellbeing of the country,” Ooi said. 

There will be a preview of the scope of the DAP e-Campaign at the party’s National Election Technical Preparatory Conference scheduled for this Sunday, August 19.                           

(15/8/2007)