As the 14th General Election gets ever closer, our already embattled Prime Minister is now faced with having to present a revised national budget for 2016, exposing his administration to charges that it has planned poorly. When he presented the original budget last October, he had somewhat naively assumed that oil prices would not fall too far below US$48 a barrel despite predictions to the contrary from experts all over the world. Well, it’s now fallen below US$30.

But even as Najib struggles with economic issues, social media studies done by Politweet suggest that regardless of his actions and decisions from now on, the next general election will still be one defined as a struggle between DAP and Umno. Among the findings was that on Facebook, Umno and DAP held the largest presence among all political parties in Malaysia, with Umno’s audience standing at 6.8 million and DAP’s at 3.8 million.

Additionally, interest in the DAP peaks in major urban areas like Putrajaya and the Klang Valley, where the party dominates 57 per cent of interest on Twitter. However, the secularist party commands little interest in Johor, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, and Perak. It’s worth remembering that DAP has defined Johor, Umno’s birthplace, as a key battleground for the next GE.

There are many factors playing behind the figures in Politweet’s study, among them the urban-rural divide, the clash of liberal and conservative ideologies and Umno’s long history as a party in power.

Nevertheless, the main reason why DAP will not defeat Umno, as things now stand, is that it fails to understand the needs and aspirations of the Malay community, and the customs involved in Malay politics.

For better or for worse, the DAP has made its name off a brand of aggressive, activist-style politics that relies on relentless attacks. While the newer and younger elements of the party like Yeo Bee Yin and Rajiv Rishyakaran espouse a more moderate approach that relies less on the volume of sound and more on action and substance, party stalwarts like Tony Pua exemplify the brand of confrontational politics that has so far galvanised Chinese support for the party.

Also, the party is largely urban, and has often been accused of failure to understand the challenges and needs of a rural community. This is something DAP has yet to tackle in a truly meaningful manner. The preferred politics of the heartland is much more genteel than the kind DAP is accustomed to playing. The needs of the rural folk are much more basic than those of urban citizens, who dream of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and the like.

If it hopes to gain even more power in the next election, DAP must enlarge its embrace because no party can claim to represent all the people unless all the people are involved, and in a meaningful way at that. Winning the perception war will be a difficult challenge, but a new approach is needed after years of the same kind of politics.

In the public consciousness, DAP is second only to Umno in terms of visibility, but that stature is not all positive. Thankfully, any publicity is good publicity, and with so many eyes on DAP, a concerted effort to transform it into a party representative of all our country’s colours will not go unseen.