Archive for July 2015
Early Findings from Conversations about Muhyiddin Yassin
1. Background
On July 28th 2015 a new Cabinet line-up was announced by Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak (PM Najib).
Former Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was absent from the new Cabinet. Zaid Hamidi replaced him for the post of Deputy Prime Minister and Mahdzir Khalid replaced him for the post of Minister of Education.
Muhyiddin being dropped from the Cabinet followed speculation that this would happen due to his remarks about 1MDB on Sunday, July 26th. He was reported to have asked for PM Najib to personally explain the 1MDB issue and answer the allegations by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) (reference).
Analysing Pakatan Rakyat’s Performance with Malay Voters in Peninsular Malaysia (GE13)
1. Background
Prior to the 13th General Election (GE13) we came up with a methodology of predicting election results based on voting patterns in previous elections (reference).
Our method relied on mapping polling lane results to individual voters. This process assigned probability values (chance of turnout; chance of voting for each coalition) to the voter that was not affected if they migrated to another constituency. This is important because between GE12 and GE13 527,849 voters migrated to different constituencies.
The impact of voter migration cannot be measured for a single seat just by comparing results of GE12 and GE13 for that seat. An analysis of the whole country needs to be performed. New voter registrations, voters passing away and voters no longer eligible to vote are other factors that require deep analysis.
After GE13 we were able to apply the same estimation method to voters based on GE13 results. By comparing the shift in probabilities we are able to calculate the swing in support for each coalition. Because we base our calculations on individual voters, we are able to calculate shifts in support based on combinations of the following dimensions:
- By Age
- By Race
- By Gender
- By Urban Development Category (rural / semi-urban / urban)
- By Parliament/State Assembly Seat
- By Polling District
- By Locality
- By Seats Won by Specific Parties
Any voter whose level of support cannot be determined is assigned a probability of 50% and categorised as a fence-sitter. The most reliable metric is age because voters are separated into polling lanes based on age. Additionally we have also categorised the 222 Parliament constituencies as rural, semi-urban or urban based on satellite imagery (reference). The descriptions of each category are:
Rural = villages (kampungs) / small towns / farmland distributed within the seat. Rural seats tend to be physically large with a low population.
Semi-urban = larger towns and/or numerous small towns, may include villages as well
Urban = cities where a majority of the seat is covered by some form of urban development
For this report we will focus on how Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and Barisan Nasional (BN) performed with regular Malay voters (pengundi biasa) in Peninsular Malaysia. 184 of the total 222 Parliament seats are in Peninsular Malaysia, where most of the Malay electorate is concentrated.
Elections are won based on the number of seats. However our analysis will mainly be on the Malay electorate treated as a set of voters ignoring constituency boundaries. We will examine this at the state-level and for Peninsular Malaysia. This will allow us to see patterns that are not obvious at the seat-level.
Postal and early voters are not part of this analysis. They need to be analysed separately due to their different voting process and difficulties in campaigning to both groups.
Please remember that unless otherwise stated, all statistics in this analysis refer to regular voters in Peninsular Malaysia only.
Early Findings From Conversations About The Low Yat Incident
1. Background
On Saturday (July 11th 2015) between 4.50pm – 5.00pm two Malay youths were apprehended by Oppo salesperson(s) while allegedly running away after stealing a phone from another store at Low Yat Plaza. One was released and later returned at night (7.50 pm) with other youths to take revenge on the Oppo store and salesperson(s) involved [1]. Video footage of the fight started to go viral later that night.
The majority of users were sharing the video and expressing surprise. Few users openly expressed support/respect for the Malay youths involved in the initial fight on Saturday. There were more users commenting that Low Yat traders (specifically Chinese) were known to be cheats.
On Sunday (July 12th) there was little discussion about the incident on Twitter. Starting at 4pm a link to a blog post (http://www.utaranews.com/2015/07/rusuhan-besar-akan-berlaku-di-low-yatt.html) was tweeted out stating that there was going to be a riot at Low Yat Plaza ‘soon’ allegedly ‘in retaliation to cheating by Chinese traders’. The source for this news was not stated, and the link was tweeted out together with hashtags #melayubersatu and #kekalnajib.
Screenshot of the blog text:
Example of how it was shared:
Rusuhan Besar akan berlaku di Low Yatt tak lama lagi.. #repeat #lowyatt #melayubersatu #kekalnajib: Berikutan … http://t.co/OofoDFYxes
— unit media baru PPUM (@unitmediabaru) July 12, 2015
On Sunday night at 7pm a large group of Malay youths gathered outside Low Yat Plaza and tried to gain entry. However they were stopped by police and ordered to disperse. After midnight they returned and started to begin fights outside Low Yat [3]. Five people were injured [4] and a car was badly damaged by the rioters.
