Speaking to FMT, Faisal S Hazis, an associate professor at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, said this was based on a survey he had conducted which showed that about 80% of voters already know who they are going to vote for.
He said the fact that the website was created just before the election would also hamper its effectiveness.
“If BN wishes to create a significant impact, the website should have been done a long time ago.”
Faisal was commenting on BN’s second official political web portal this year to publicise its achievements and counter criticism ahead of GE14.
The site, barisannasional.org.my, contains information on BN legislators in each state and major development projects initiated by the current government.
It also features a list of promises it claims BN has fulfilled in areas such as healthcare, education, transport, public safety, governance, and urban and rural development.
In January this year, Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is also BN chairman, had launched another BN website named The Rakyat, to focus on issues related to GE14.
Najib said then that the portal was necessary in light of the coalition’s experience before the last general election in May 2013, where the opposition had used social media as a weapon to discredit BN and spread alleged lies.
He said social media had become the main platform for people to receive information and make their decisions in elections.
Faisal, however, said BN had a weak online presence compared to the opposition.
He said in Malaysia, the opposition did not have access to mainstream media and had been forced to rely on social media in the last two elections.
Faisal also said it was possible that BN had wanted to create as many sources of information as possible but, at the end of the day, the website was not as important as the information being channelled through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
“Nowadays, people will not really go to websites for information unless they are online portals for alternative news.
“This is also one of the reasons why the portals which BN has created will not be effective.”