Election Forecast for Pakatan Harapan in Peninsular Malaysia (GE14)
1. Introduction
On January 10th 2018 a detailed listing of the 165 seats being contested by Pakatan Harapan (PH) component parties in Peninsular Malaysia was published in The Star and Malaysiakini (https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/408114). Based on this listing, the seat division is as follows:
- 52 seats contested by PPBM
- 51 seats contested by PKR
- 35 seats contested by DAP
- 27 seats contested by AMANAH
This report provides an overview of the seats contested by component parties in PH, the winning odds and forecasted results for each seat under a number of different scenarios. Analysis was performed based on the 2017 1st Quarter (Q1) electoral roll, 2016 3rd Quarter (Q3) electoral roll, State and Federal seat results from the 13th General Election (GE13) and individual historical voting patterns from GE12 (2008) and GE13 (2013).
A copy of this report in PDF format can be downloaded at https://drive.google.com/file/d/16glv67fwRybQxdKS7X1fFC9R1SN0TSGy/view?usp=sharing
The Most Followed Twitter Users in Malaysia (Oct 2017)
Since 2014 we have been building up a database of profiled Twitter users in Malaysia. We currently have over 630,000 profiled user accounts that are location-based. What this means is that we can analyse opinions and interests not just by state, but by area (e.g. cities, constituencies, campuses, malls, suburbs / taman). We have demonstrated the application of this database for opinion analysis (browse here) and by-elections (link). We are currently working on improving the level of detail for our profiles and are now sharing part of our research results with the public.
Using a sample of 24,677 users from our database, we collected their lists of Twitter ‘friends’ (user accounts that people follow). This resulted in a list of 2.07 million users. This list was then used to summarise the top 207,500 most-followed users by users in Malaysia.
The Top 10 most-followed Twitter users are below:
| Rank | @ScreenName | Name | Market Reach (%) |
| 1 | 39.385 | ||
| 2 | Khairykj | Khairy Jamaluddin | 35.665 |
| 3 | 9GAG | 9GAG | 32.577 |
| 4 | Matluthfi90 | Matluthfi90 | 27.459 |
| 5 | yunamusic | Yuna Zarai | 25.064 |
| 6 | 501Awani | Astro AWANI | 23.982 |
| 7 | NajibRazak | Mohd Najib Tun Razak | 23.625 |
| 8 | waktuSolatKL | Waktu Solat WP KL | 22.653 |
| 9 | SantapanMinda | Santapan Minda | 22.134 |
| 10 | ustazharidrus | Ust Azhar Idrus | 21.818 |
Market reach is defined as the percentage of users in Malaysia who follow that Twitter user. Based on this list, Khairy Jamaluddin (MP for Rembau, Minister of Youth and Sports, UMNO Youth Leader) is both the most-followed person and most-followed Malaysian in the country. But his market reach is only 35.665% of users in Malaysia. This shows that no single user on Twitter ‘owns’ the Malaysian market. Because we are using profiled users, the possibility of fake followers (or phantoms, fake accounts etc.) is a non-issue.
The Top 10 users have a combined market reach of 82.25%. Most Twitter users in Malaysia have a market reach that would be considered small. But a small market reach does not mean that a tweet has no chance of going viral. Due to the high degree of connectivity between Twitter users plus the Twitter Search factor, there is always a chance for a tweet getting retweeted and spread throughout the network.
Using the data that we collected, we performed a network analysis on how the most-followed Twitter users are connected to each other based on their followers. For this analysis we used the top 4,704 users. This covers all user accounts followed by users in Malaysia with a minimum market reach of 0.61%.
Users that have a shared appeal (affinity) will have overlapping audiences, which is equal to strong connections if the overlap is high. For example, users that tweet primarily about football will draw interest from other people who like football.
Based on the network analysis we generated a map showing clusters of users with a strong affinity for each other. Based on where they are in the map, you can see the affinity that different popular users have with each other. Users with a greater market reach are shown in a larger font, coloured from a scale ranging from blue (least popular) to orange to red (most popular).
The full-size version can be viewed at our Flickr page here.
At a glance you can see that the top users are close to each other where @Khairykj and @instagram are visible. As stated earlier the Top 10 users have a combined market reach of 82.25%. Despite the fact that these users don’t tweet about the same topics, their proximity to each other is due to their mass market appeal.
How Political Interest is Divided by Language on Facebook in Malaysia (July 2017)
1. Introduction
This document provides a measurement of the political party interests of Facebook users in Malaysia. This is based on public information collected from Facebook.
Some important notes to remember when interpreting Facebook figures:
- Total population refers to Facebook users aged 13 years and above.
- Potential voters refer to Facebook users aged 21 years and above.
- Youth refers to Facebook users aged 13 – 20 years.
- Gender breakdown figures do not always add up to the total. This may be due to Facebook users not sharing their gender, and also due to rounding errors in statistics provided by Facebook. State breakdown figures also do not add up to the total due to the same rounding errors.
- Detailed statistics on Putrajaya are not available due to the small number of users in the territory.
- Figures provided by Facebook are estimates. Some inaccuracies are to be expected, e.g. the sum of state totals not being equal to the national total.
- Facebook users residing in Malaysia are not necessarily Malaysian citizens.
- Interest in a topic is equal to the number of users expressing interest in a topic.
- To measure interest we used a combination of Facebook Interests (a collection of interests, activities, groups, pages, status updates and job history identified by a common term determined by Facebook e.g. ‘United Malays National Organization’) and specific Group and Page names (e.g. Friends of BN).
- These are used to collect the number of users interested in a given party/coalition/politician/group. For example, a user mentioning a party name in a status update; sharing a news link related to the party or sharing content from a party-affiliated page would count towards the total interest in that party
- Interest in a political party does not indicate support for the party, only awareness
- It is currently assumed that interest in PAS includes some interest in AMANAH as PAS leaders and members migrated to AMANAH
- Audience refers to the population of users that express interest in a topic. Unless indicated, the audiences used in this report are composed of potential voters (users in Malaysia aged 21 years and above).
- Based on our research to date, Pages that are of type ‘politician’ are not always included under related Facebook Topics. For example, not all ‘Tony Pua’ (MP, PJ Utara, DAP) Page likes are included under interest in ‘DAP’. However, because Facebook does not make Topic details available we cannot easily determine which politicians, if any, were included.
- Statistics on the Opposition primarily refer to component parties of the former Pakatan Rakyat – PKR, PAS and DAP. This includes the ‘Pakatan’ brand name.
- July 2017 statistics were collected during a 2-week period in July 2017. As such there may be some differences in totals for political parties when comparing different sections due to changes in collected statistics.
- Statistics on the 2017 1st Quarter electoral roll are estimates based on published changes to the 2016 gazetted roll. Ethnic breakdown for new voters are based on profiling methods that we developed and should be considered estimates.
2. List of Acronyms
The following table shows a list of acronyms used in this document.
| Acronym | Full name |
| PR | Pakatan Rakyat |
| PH | Pakatan Harapan |
| BN | Barisan Nasional |
| UMNO | United Malays National Organisation |
| GERAKAN | Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (also known as PGRM) |
| MCA | Malaysian Chinese Association |
| MIC | Malaysian Indian Congress |
| PBB | Parti Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu Sarawak |
| PKR | Parti Keadilan Rakyat |
| DAP | Democratic Action Party |
| AMANAH | Parti Amanah Negara |
| PAS | Parti Islam Se-Malaysia |
| PPBM | Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia |
3. An Overview of Malaysia’s Facebook User Population (July 2017)
3.1 Division by Age and Gender
There are currently 24 million Facebook users in Malaysia. 54.17% are men and 45.83% are women.
From this total, 19 million users are aged 21 years and above. 52.63% are men and 47.37% are women. These are the potential voters on Facebook.
The chart below shows the population distribution by age group. The largest segment of the population is aged between 21 – 30 years.
The table below shows the distribution of Facebook users by state, sorted by the total population:
| State | Total (13+ yrs) |
Male (%) | Female (%) | % of Malaysia |
| Perlis | 40,000 | 52.50 | 47.50 | 0.17 |
| Labuan | 170,000 | 52.35 | 46.47 | 0.71 |
| Kelantan | 290,000 | 51.72 | 44.83 | 1.21 |
| Terengganu | 370,000 | 51.35 | 48.65 | 1.54 |
| Negeri Sembilan | 380,000 | 55.26 | 47.37 | 1.58 |
| Melaka | 390,000 | 53.85 | 46.15 | 1.63 |
| Pahang | 500,000 | 54.00 | 48.00 | 2.08 |
| Kedah | 610,000 | 54.10 | 47.54 | 2.54 |
| Perak | 880,000 | 51.14 | 48.86 | 3.67 |
| Penang | 990,000 | 51.52 | 48.48 | 4.13 |
| Sabah | 1,000,000 | 53.00 | 47.00 | 4.17 |
| Sarawak | 1,100,000 | 51.82 | 45.45 | 4.58 |
| Johor | 1,900,000 | 57.89 | 45.79 | 7.92 |
| KL + Selangor | 15,000,000 | 56.67 | 42.67 | 62.50 |
The table below shows the distribution of Facebook users by state aged 21 years and above.
| State | Total (>=21 yrs) | Male (%) | Female (%) | % of Msia (>=21 yrs) | % of State (>=21 yrs) |
| Perlis | 33,000 | 51.52 | 48.48 | 0.17 | 82.50 |
| Labuan | 140,000 | 52.14 | 45.71 | 0.74 | 82.35 |
| Kelantan | 230,000 | 52.17 | 43.48 | 1.21 | 79.31 |
| Terengganu | 290,000 | 51.72 | 48.28 | 1.53 | 78.38 |
| Negeri Sembilan | 310,000 | 54.84 | 48.39 | 1.63 | 81.58 |
| Melaka | 320,000 | 53.13 | 46.88 | 1.68 | 82.05 |
| Pahang | 400,000 | 55.00 | 47.50 | 2.11 | 80.00 |
| Kedah | 490,000 | 53.06 | 46.94 | 2.58 | 80.33 |
| Perak | 710,000 | 50.70 | 47.89 | 3.74 | 80.68 |
| Sabah | 790,000 | 53.16 | 46.84 | 4.16 | 79.00 |
| Penang | 840,000 | 50.00 | 47.62 | 4.42 | 84.85 |
| Sarawak | 840,000 | 53.57 | 46.43 | 4.42 | 76.36 |
| Johor | 1,600,000 | 55.00 | 45.00 | 8.42 | 84.21 |
| KL + Selangor | 12,000,000 | 56.67 | 44.17 | 63.16 | 80.00 |
Based on the last column we can see that Sarawak, Terengganu, Kelantan and Sabah have the highest proportion of young users (below 21 years).
As of 2017 Quarter 1, an estimated 21.64% of registered voters reside in KL and Selangor. In the National Census 2010, 24.35% of Malaysia’s citizens and 24.11% of Malaysia’s total population reside in KL and Selangor.
However according to statistics from Facebook, 62.50% of Facebook users in Malaysia reside in KL and Selangor. This includes Malaysians and foreigners who live there. This is an increase from 50% in August 2016.
The heavy concentration of users in KL and Selangor means that trending content in Malaysia in terms of shares and likes might not reflect what the country is talking about. When it comes to the analysis of interest in local issues such as politics, it is therefore important to evaluate the interests of users in different states.
3.2 Division by Language
The chart below shows the number of potential voters by language used on Facebook, based on information they have shared with Facebook:
Hindi/Tamil = users who use Hindi or Tamil. Only 20 thousand users use both languages
If we added the totals together there would be 30 million users. Given that there are only 19 million Facebook users, there is an overlap between users from each group. Many users speak multiple languages.
93% of potential voters on Facebook use English, Malay or Chinese languages. Because of this high coverage, we were able to design a set of formulas to break up these users into smaller, identifiable groups based on different combinations of spoken languages. The population of users in these groups can then be estimated. The results of this analysis are in the table below:
| Language Group | Code | % of Population (>=21 years) | Description |
| Bilingual Malay + English | BME | 40.26 | Users who speak Malay and English. May also speak other languages except Chinese. |
| English Only / English + Other languages | EO | 19.21 | Users who speak English but do not speak Malay or Chinese. May also speak other languages. |
| Malay Only / Malay + Other languages | MO | 13.95 | Users who speak Malay but do not speak English or Chinese. May also speak other languages. |
| Bilingual Chinese + English | BCE | 12.37 | Users who speak both Chinese and English. May also speak other languages except Malay. |
| Other Languages Only | OTH | 7.11 | Users who do not speak English, Malay or Chinese |
| Chinese Only / Chinese + Other languages | CO | 3.42 | Users who speak Chinese but do not speak English or Malay. May also speak other languages. |
| Bilingual Malay + Chinese | BMC | 1.84 | Users who speak both Malay and Chinese. May also speak other languages except English. |
| Trilingual Malay + English + Chinese | TRI | 1.84 | Users who speak English, Malay and Chinese. May also speak other languages. |
The proportion of each group is summarised in the chart below.
From the chart we can observe that:
- The Bilingual Malay + English (BME) group is both the largest group of users and largest subset of Malay speakers in the country
- Most Malay speakers on Facebook understand English
- The Bilingual Chinese + English (BCE) group is the 4th largest group of users and largest subset of Chinese speakers in the country
- Most Chinese speakers on Facebook understand English
- A minority of users (3.68%, 700 thousand) speak combinations of Malay and Chinese
Recent Trends in Political Party Interest on Facebook in Malaysia (Aug 2016)
1. Introduction
This document provides a measurement of the political party interests of Facebook users in Malaysia. This is based on public information collected from Facebook.
Some important notes to remember when interpreting Facebook figures:
- Total population refers to Facebook users aged 13 years and above.
- Potential voters refer to Facebook users aged 21 years and above.
- Youth refers to Facebook users aged 13 – 20 years.
- Gender breakdown figures do not add up to the total. This may be due to Facebook users not sharing their gender, and also due to rounding errors by Facebook when dealing with specific age groups. State breakdown figures also do not add up to the total, due to the same rounding errors.
- Figures provided by Facebook are estimates. Some inaccuracies are to be expected.
- Facebook users residing in Malaysia are not necessarily Malaysian citizens.
- Interest in a topic is equal to the number of users expressing interest in a topic.
- To measure interest we used a combination of Facebook Interests (a collection of interests, activities, groups, pages, status updates and job history identified by a common term determined by Facebook e.g. ‘United Malays National Organization’) and specific Group and Page names (e.g. Friends of BN).
- These are used to collect the number of users interested in a given party/coalition/politician/group. For example, a user mentioning a party name in a status update; sharing a news link related to the party or sharing content from a party-affiliated page would count towards the total interest in that party
- Interest in a political party does not indicate support for the party, only awareness
- It is assumed that interest in PAS includes interest in AMANAH as PAS leaders migrated to AMANAH
- Audience refers to the population of users that express interest in a topic.
- Based on our research to date, Pages that are of type ‘politician’ are not always included under related Facebook Topics. For example, not all ‘Tony Pua’ (MP, PJ Utara, DAP) Page likes are included under interest in ‘DAP’. However because Facebook does not make Topic details available we cannot easily determine which politicians, if any, were included.
- Statistics on the Opposition primarily refer to component parties of the former Pakatan Rakyat – PKR, PAS and DAP. Interest in PSM is included in total statistics for the Opposition, but is not listed separately due to its small audience.
2. Interest in Political Parties on Facebook
The following graph shows the partisanship of interest in political parties by Facebook users in Malaysia aged 21 years and above. Interest in PAS is assumed to include interest in AMANAH because Facebook has not made separate AMANAH figures available yet.
Out of 8.4 million users in Malaysia (aged 21 years and above) that are interested in BN or Opposition parties:
- 54% are male and 46% are female
- 3 million are interested in Opposition parties
- 8 million are interested in BN parties
- 76% (400 thousand) are exclusively interested in Opposition parties
- 52% (2.9 million) are interested in a mix of Opposition and BN parties
- 71% (5.1 million) are exclusively interested in BN parties
As of August 2016 the level of exclusive interest in 60.71% for BN and 4.76% for the Opposition. This is a record high for BN and a record low for the Opposition since we began tracking these statistics in December 2012.
