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KUALA LUMPUR \u2013 The film Dear You has moved many moviegoers<\/span><\/a> and become the top-grossing Chinese-language movie in Malaysia in 2026, with box office takings of at least RM15 million (S$4.8 million).<\/p>\n Political parties are now seeking to capitalise on its popularity to win the support of Chinese voters ahead of the Johor state election on July 11.<\/p>\n Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim\u2019s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition fired the opening salvo with a full-page advertisement in the local Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily on July 5.<\/p>\n It featured a white-haired grandmother writing to her granddaughter, who is based outside Johor for work, urging her to return to her home town to vote.<\/p>\n The letter read: \u201cDear child, please come home on July 11 to visit me and cast your sacred ballot. Malaysia is heading towards a brighter future. I hope you will hold Grandma\u2019s hand as we walk that path together. Love, Ah Ma.\u201d<\/p>\n Alongside the letter was an old photo of the granddaughter as a child playing with other children.<\/p>\n For PH, Johor voters based in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are seen as crucial to its electoral prospects, hence the appeal for them to return to vote.<\/p>\n At the 2022 Johor state election, voter turnout fell to 55 per cent because of Covid-19 travel curbs. The Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition secured 40 out of 56 seats for a two-thirds majority in the state assembly. PH won only 12 seats.<\/p>\n The 2022 voter turnout was a far cry from the more than 80 per cent turnout recorded in the 2013 and 2018 general elections in Johor.<\/p>\n In response to PH\u2019s Dear You campaign, Kuso Alliance, a group that supports BN, posted a spoof of the PH poster on Facebook on July 5, targeting the Democratic Action Party (DAP), a key component party of PH.<\/p>\n The altered version read: \u201cIf you vote wrongly for the DAP, Ah Ma will no longer have Teochew salted pork to eat. Love, Ah Ma.\u201d<\/p>\n This referred to a controversy involving the PH-led Selangor government, which followed the\u00a0state ruler\u2019s directive to expedite the closure of 114 pig farms<\/span><\/a> by June 30 over pollution concerns.<\/p>\n On July 5, a third Dear You-linked poster also appeared on the Facebook page of Parti Bersama Malaysia (Bersama), a newly launched party led by Rafizi Ramli, who was formerly the economy minister under the PH government.<\/p>\n The poster featured an Ah Ma wiping away the tears of a granddaughter who had previously felt pressured to vote for PH. It read: \u201cNow, we smile when we vote instead of shedding tears.\u201d<\/p>\n The message reflected dissatisfaction among some Bersama supporters over what they described as PH\u2019s fearmongering tactic of warning that a vote for BN could indirectly strengthen Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS).<\/p>\n Some in the Chinese community view BN and PAS as representing increasingly divisive politics.<\/p>\n Amid the Dear You poster wars, Johor voters told The Straits Times that they were indifferent to the messaging.<\/p>\n A 37-year-old Johor Bahru native based in Singapore said she had already decided to vote in the election before the Dear You-linked political advertisements appeared.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat truly moves hearts and minds is not just a poster, but a political platform that offers people a vision of the future. I am more influenced by candidates\u2019 ideas and leadership abilities,\u201d said the e-commerce executive, who wished to be known only as Mei Wan.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, 30-year-old QS Chin from Kulai, felt that PH had taken the support of voters working outside Johor for granted.<\/p>\n \u201cIt created a sense of moral blackmail, as if forcing Johoreans working away from home to vote for them (PH). I would rather see solutions to issues such as traffic congestion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sign up for our weekly\u00a0Asian\u00a0Insider\u00a0Malaysia Edition\u00a0<\/span><\/a>newsletter to make sense of the big stories in Malaysia.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n KUALA LUMPUR \u2013 The film Dear You has moved many moviegoers and become the top-grossing Chinese-language movie in Malaysia in 2026, with box office takings…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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