Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe by Email Earlier, Prof Arabi reported his analysis of the election results. He indicated a rather stereotype profiling – Indians felt marginalised, Chinese unhappy with the economy management, and Malays unhappy that government giving in too much to non-Malays.
In the article below, we see another NST coverage on election analysis. The two analysis were done by UKM’s people and also Merdeka Centre.. Among the interesting points highlighted were no bonus for government staff, and belittling the voters and public’s intelligence by issuing statements like “free schooling”. I agree that the statement issued by parties leading up to the election were at times comical and tend to irritate people more. The biased coverage especially by TV stations made situation worse.
Both analysis mentioned that high percentage of Indians voted againts BN (69% and 70%). I guess HINDRAF played a major role in that. But in terms of other races, the analysis disagreed. UKM result says 10% of Malays voted for opposition while Merdeka Centre said nearly half. For Chinese, UKM said 42% while Merdeka Centre said nearly 2/3.
The two analysis provided more understanding and the possible reason for election swing, although only time will tell if the factors were correct.
No stomach for rising cost of living
By : P. SELVARANI, SONIA RAMACHANDRAN and AUDREY VIJAINDREN
source
The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and when his tummy starts growling, his discontent knows no bounds. P. SELVARANI, SONIA RAMACHANDRAN and AUDREY VIJAINDREN discover that this is one of the fundamental reasons why so many votes swung in favour of the opposition during the general election.
IN the end, it all came down to taking care of the public’s stomach, holding down the cost of living.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia political science head Associate Professor Mohammad Agus Yusoff said a study on the results done by his department found 69 per cent of Indian votes had swung to the opposition in the recent elections. For the Chinese, the swing vote was 42 per cent while for the Malays, it was 10 per cent.
“Generally speaking, the Malay voters, especially those in the rural areas, chose Barisan Nasional (BN). “The 10 per cent swing votes were from young, urban and middle-class voters.”
The reasons, said Agus, were plenty. One of the main grouses was the failure of the government to live up to its 2004 pledges. “These promises included wiping out corruption, being a caring government, upholding justice and repairing the judiciary.”
Another reason was the economy . “The talk of economic corridors, job opportunities and comfortable lifestyles were not evident to the majority of the rakyat. They just could not see it.”
He said that apart from feeling marginalised, the Indian and Chinese voters were unhappy as the government seemed not to think of their livelihood. “They felt the government had failed to care for their ‘stomach’. The rising cost of living made it difficult for them to live comfortably. “They believed that if the BN was given the majority of votes, the cost of living would go up and this would impact their quality of life.”
Silent voters, he said, accounted for 40 per cent of swing votes. These silent voters were people who never openly criticised the government but instead took their grouses to the ballot box. Perhaps, says Agus, the swing votes would not have been so high if the government had given out bonuses to government servants. “The salary increment for this group was last year and the culture of every community in the world is that they only remember rewards given at the ‘last minute’.”
The government needs to re-shape and reposition itself to focus on the people’s needs, he says.
“The role of the media also needed to be repositioned so as to not insult the intelligence of the people. “The media cannot assume the public can be fooled with what they say. In any case, most young and intellectual voters do not rely on the mainstream media. They also gather information from alternative sources like the Internet.”
Having said that, Agus says, the BN’s failure to pay heed to the power of the alternative media, like the Internet, was not the reason for their losses. “They had more than 10 websites and blogs but the problem was that their sites were irrelevant and out of context. “They just used the Internet to deny allegations and insult the opposition instead of answering, tackling and highlighting issues.
“They have to move away from the Denial Syndrome.”
The government, he stresses, should have relevant and consistent policies. “For example, do not say that school fees are free when the amount waived is only a few ringgit while the extra fees that parents have to pay amount to much more.”
The government, he says, should start winning the hearts of young voters by addressing the unemployment rate among graduates. “There are more than 120,000 unemployed graduates in the country and next year the number could reach 150,000. “We are asked to offer courses that are marketable. What is marketable? We are producing academically qualified graduates, not selling products.”
Will this voting trend continue? “It depends to what extent the government will care about the ‘stomachs’ of the people,” Agus says.
The Merdeka Centre’s Director of Programmes, Ibrahim Suffian, says the economy was the predominant factor feeding into public discontent in the run-up to the election. “But ultimately, the tipping factor was the perception that the government was not doing enough to solve problems like the rising cost of living, curbing the high-handed behaviour among some civil servants, particularly in cases such as (former army commando) M. Moorthy’s religious status, temple demolitions and insensitive remarks and gestures by politicians.
“This should not have come as a big surprise as it was already evident among ethnic Chinese voters in Sarawak in the previous state elections.”
Ibrahim says the swing was most felt in urban seats, and in the Malay rural heartland the BN’s performance differed according to the state and local dynamics involved. “In some places where the candidates replaced long established incumbents, we noticed marked incidents of infighting and in some cases, paralysis of the local BN party machinery.”
He says the support for the opposition was fairly pervasive across all age groups, especially among the Chinese and Indian voters. “In the case of Malay voters, the younger voters, typically those aged between the late 20s and late 30s were most in favour of the opposition with the rest roughly split down the middle.
Preliminary findings of the Merdeka Centre’s post-election analysis indicated that half the Malays, two-thirds of the Chinese and nearly 70 per cent of Indians voted for the opposition.
Ibrahim said dissatisfaction was most evident among the Indian voters. “We heard so many stories of how Indian voters and youths volunteered to help PAS in many places throughout the country.”
Asked if the BN could have done anything to save the situation before polling day, Ibrahim believed the BN would have been able to reduce the oppositions’ gains a little if there had been a mea culpa (admission of fault) earlier on. “And along with the admission, (they should) ask the general public to give them a chance to set things right again.
“With respect to non-Umno parties, things might have been different if they showed some spine in their dealings and responses to some actions taken by Umno, even if it was all for public relations purposes.”
Swing votes depend on electoral system
WHAT exactly is a swing vote?
Datuk Dr Sothi Rachagan who is the author of the book Law and the Electoral Process in Malaysia said electoral swings compare the performance of parties over time in the same area, or in one election across different areas. The calculation of swings, said Sothi, would vary depending on the type of electoral system used.
The electoral swing was first used by David Butler, a political science academic at Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1945. “The Butler Swing measures the percentage point worth of voters who previously voted for Party A, voting instead for Party B. “It is calculated by taking the average of the percentage point fall in Party A’s share of the vote and the percentage point rise in Party B’s.”
Sothi is the deputy president of the International Association for Consumer Law and Nilai International University College vice-president (academic affairs).
The Butler Swing, he said, was calculated on the basis of the total votes cast, including for parties that were not involved in the swing calculation. The Steed Swing, however, said Sothi, excludes the votes for all parties but the two in question. “Both the Butler Swing and Steed Swing were devised for analysis of vote swings in Britain that, like Malaysia, uses the first-past-the-post system in single member constituencies.
“Simply put, it means we elect only one representative in each constituency. The winner is the candidate with the largest number of votes regardless of whether the candidate obtained an absolute majority.”
Sothi added that Butler himself noted that swing measurement is admittedly imperfect and only gives a broad idea of the movement of opinion from one party to another.Sothi said that it was important for the basis of calculation of swings to be verified before estimates are relied on for analysis and comment.”Some of the analysis I have seen are befitting of the entertainment world rather than academia.”
