Barisan Nasional’s (BN) historic loss in the 14th Malaysian General Election (GE14) at the hands of Pakatan Harapan (PH), ending its 61-year rule, was a battle lost on various fronts— social media included.

Objectively, BN’s social media game has improved on many accounts.

Compared to GE12 and GE13, BN’s social media machinery established far savvier campaigns featuring viral videos, influencers, and trending slogans like #Negarakru (a play on Negaraku) and #HebatkanNegaraku (Make My Country Great).

Yet this proved insufficient to convince enough citizens to vote in its favour for several reasons.

… Najwa Abdullah is a Research Analyst with the Malaysia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. Amalina Anuar is a Research Assistant in the same programme. This is part of a series of commentaries by RSIS on the 14th Malaysian General Election.