Hoping for a hop?

As mentioned a few days ago in this blog, news of party-hopping among Malaysian politicians gains prominence in the mainstream media as we draw closer to the general election, especially if the crossover is in favour of the incumbent BN. The bigger the ‘catch’, the bigger is the news coverage likely to be. And so in yesterday’s New Straits Times (28 Feb) there was a news item that flashed a banner headline on top of page 7, “Keadilan’s Saifuddin may join Umno”. It reported that Parti Keadilan Nasional vice-president and State Assemblyman for Lunas, Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, had met the Prime Minister and that “it is believed he had expressed his intention to join Umno”.

The report also quoted some “sources” (unknown to us all) that “he (Saifuddin) had declared to (Premier) Abdullah that he was ready to ‘jump ship’.” Here the reader is given the impression that this party-hopping was very imminent – especially in the wake of recent frog-jumping involving certain individuals from Keadilan.

But the speculated crossover did not happen. Somewhere in the middle of page 5 of today’s (29 Feb.) New Sunday Times, there lies a headline, “Saifuddin says he has no plans to rejoin Umno”. In this report, Saifuddin refuted the allegation, where he was quoted as saying, among other things, that “he had ‘no intention whatsoever’ of joining Umno”. He also said “the newspaper reports were in bad faith and intended to create disunity among the opposition parties.”

Incidentally, this report is placed underneath a huge photograph showing Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak welcoming the defection of Pekan Keadilan deputy chief Mohd Noordin @ Abdul Aziz Mohd Nor to Umno. The photo caption claims that he “is among more than 100 opposition party members who applied to join Umno yesterday.” Curiously, there’s no detailed report on this seemingly big hop.

In today’s Berita Minggu on page 4, a story with a headline “Saifuddin akui ada berjumpa Perdana Menteri” (Saifuddin admits meeting the Prime Minister) carries Saifuddin’s refutation of the allegation that he’s joining Umno. This denial, however, is only mentioned in the fourth paragraph of the report.

At the time of writing, we’re not sure whether the coverage of both the NST and Berita Minggu regarding Saifuddin’s denial is triggered by Saifuddin's threat (as reported in malaysiakini yesterday) to “initiate legal action against the two dailies, Berita Harian and the New Straits Times, which reported the allegations.”