Opinion Analysis on Breakup of Pakatan Rakyat by Users in Malaysia

1. Background

On June 16th 2015 the Democratic Action Party (DAP) released a statement saying that Pakatan Rakyat (PR) ceases to exist following the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) Muktamar’s motion to sever ties with DAP [1]. The DAP also pledged to work with PKR and any other parties to defeat Barisan Nasional (BN).

On June 17th 2015 Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) released a statement saying that Pakatan Rakyat no longer functions formally [2]. PKR also stated that they would work to build a coalition to defeat BN.

In the days that followed there was confusion on whether Pakatan Rakyat as a coalition was truly dead. This is illustrated by the following public statements by component party leaders:

• June 18th: PAS Elections Director Datuk Mustafa Ali stated that PAS was not dead, only ‘fainted’ [3]
• June 19th: PAS President Hadi Awang declared that PR was not dead [4]
• June 20th: DAP Parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang responded by saying PR was dead [5]
• June 20th: PKR Deputy Youth Chief insists that PR is not dead [6]

Currently the Opposition-held state governments of Kelantan, Selangor and Penang appear to be continuing as state-level coalition governments. Whether the coalitions will continue to use ‘Pakatan Rakyat’ to refer to themselves is unclear.

2. Our Analysis

We performed opinion-based analysis on 475 users based in Malaysia who tweeted about Pakatan Rakyat, its component parties and related terms from June 16th – June 20th 2015. The margin of error is +/- 4.5%.

Users were selected based on their tweet content and activity during this period. Sampling was done per-state based on the current estimated user population.

Spammers, news agencies and accounts with automated tweets were not included in the sample.
From this dataset we analysed the individual Twitter user timelines to determine their opinion. This took their tweets, retweets and conversations into account.

Our goal was to gauge public reaction by Twitter users in Malaysia to the breakup of Pakatan Rakyat.

Top Social Media Content From #PRKTelukIntan, Polling Day

During the recent by-election in P76.Teluk Intan we have been collecting data from both Facebook and Twitter. Keywords based on the campaign and name of the candidates Dyana Sofya (PR/DAP) and Mah Siew Keong (BN/GERAKAN) were used.

Mah Siew Keong won the seat with a majority of 238 votes.

The following social media statistics and most-shared posts/tweets are based on what was posted on May 31st 2014 (polling day). Please note that for Facebook we are limited to only public posts, and only a daily sample of what was shared. For Twitter we work with a live stream of data, so there is no sampling issue there.

This post covers both Facebook and Twitter content.

Please read our other #PRKTelukIntan posts for more information:

Top Twitter Content From #PRKTelukIntan, Final Campaign Day

Top Facebook Media and Stats From #PRKTelukIntan, Week 2

Top Twitter Content About Mah Siew Keong, #PRKTelukIntan

Top Twitter Content About Dyana Sofya, #PRKTelukIntan

Top Facebook Media and Stats from #PRKTelukIntan, Week 1

Teluk Intan Social Media Stats

Top Twitter Content From #PRKTelukIntan, Final Campaign Day

The following is a list of the most shared photos and tweets on Twitter mentioning Dyana Sofya (the DAP candidate) and Mah Siew Keong (the GERAKAN candidate) for the by-election in Teluk Intan. Content was taken from the final day of campaigning on May 30th. Polling day is today on May 31st.

These images should give an idea of what messages and events were popular with users on Twitter. We did not include event announcements (banner images) in this sample.

Media ranking was done by the number of users sharing the URL of the photo, not the number of retweets received. Mention ranking was done by the number of users sharing the retweeted text of the original tweet. This is due to users’ common practice of manually retweeting tweets by a ‘copy and paste’ method.

Dyana Sofya held a ceramah in Teluk Intan on the night of the last day. We estimated 14,000 – 22,000 people attended the event.

Top Facebook Media and Stats From #PRKTelukIntan, Week 2

During the current by-election in P76.Teluk Intan we have been collecting data from both Facebook and Twitter. Keywords based on the campaign and name of the candidates Dyana Sofya (PR/DAP) and Mah Siew Keong (BN/GERAKAN) were used.

The following Facebook statistics and most-shared posts are based on the second week of the campaign, May 27th – May 30th (morning). Please note that we are limited to only public posts, and only a daily sample of what was shared.

From our previous analysis (read here) it is clear that social media usage will not have a big impact on the by-election results. Popularity on Facebook or Twitter are not going to be an indication of which party wins.

However it is an indication of what campaign messages received the most traction with users online, and this analysis can help future campaigners on a national level.

Please read our Teluk Intan GE13 Analysis for an idea of PR and BN’s odds in this by-election.

Top Twitter Content About Mah Siew Keong, #PRKTelukIntan

The following is a list of the most shared photos and tweets on Twitter mentioning Mah Siew Keong, the GERAKAN candidate for the by-election in Teluk Intan. Polling day is tomorrow on May 31st.

These images should give an idea of what messages and events were popular with users on Twitter. We did not include event announcements (banner images) in this sample.

Media ranking was done by the number of users sharing the URL of the photo, not the number of retweets received. Mention ranking was done by the number of users sharing the retweeted text of the original tweet. This is due to users’ common practice of manually retweeting tweets by a ‘copy and paste’ method.

We have divided the content into 2 periods:

• Week 1 (May 19th – May 25th)
• Week 2 (May 26th – early morning on May 30th)

Top Twitter Content About Dyana Sofya, #PRKTelukIntan

The following is a list of the most shared photos and tweets on Twitter mentioning Dyana Sofya, the DAP candidate for the by-election in Teluk Intan. Polling day is tomorrow on May 31st.

These images should give an idea of what messages and events were popular with users on Twitter. We did not include event announcements (banner images) in this sample.

Media ranking was done by the number of users sharing the URL of the photo, not the number of retweets received. Mention ranking was done by the number of users sharing the retweeted text of the original tweet. This is due to users’ common practice of manually retweeting tweets by a ‘copy and paste’ method.

We have divided the content into 2 periods:

• Week 1 (May 19th – May 25th)
• Week 2 (May 26th – early morning on May 30th)

Top Facebook Media and Stats from #PRKTelukIntan, Week 1

During the current by-election in P76.Teluk Intan we have been collecting data from both Facebook and Twitter. Keywords based on the campaign and name of the candidates Dyana Sofya (PR/DAP) and Mah Siew Keong (BN/GERAKAN) were used.

The following Facebook statistics and most-shared posts are based on the first week of the campaign, May 19th – May 26th. Please note that we are limited to only public posts, and only a daily sample of what was shared.

From our previous analysis (read here) it is clear that social media usage will not have a big impact on the by-election results. Popularity on Facebook or Twitter are not going to be an indication of which party wins.

However it is an indication of what campaign messages received the most traction with users online, and this analysis can help future campaigners on a national level.

Please read our Teluk Intan GE13 Analysis for an idea of PR and BN’s odds in this by-election.

Teluk Intan Social Media Stats

As a follow-up to our previous analysis on voter sentiment, we have collected social media statistics that are relevant to the current by-election in P76.Teluk Intan. The Democratic Action Party (DAP) under Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and GERAKAN under Barisan Nasional (BN) are contesting in the by-election, so our analysis will focus on these parties.

From what we have so far it is clear that social media usage will not have a big impact on the by-election results. Popularity on Facebook or Twitter are not going to be an indication of which party wins.

Teluk Intan #GE13 Analysis

During the 13th General Election (GE13) we came up with a methodology for estimating individual voter support based on polling lane results from the 12th General Election (GE12). The results of these calculations were used to design a program to predict election results based on ‘swing’ parameters fed in e.g. ethnic support; age group; increasing partisanship etc. You can read a summary of this method at the end of this post.

Using the polling lane results of the 13th General Election we compared our previous calculations and come up with an estimated swing. This can help inform analysts and campaigners for Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

For the current by-election in P76.Teluk Intan we performed an analysis of the GE13 results and found that:

1. Support for PR has increased by an average of 3.33% since GE12, from 43.85% to 47.18%
2. Support increased from Chinese voters of all ages
3. Support increased from Malay voters below 40 years old
4. Support decreased from Malay voters aged 40 years and above
5. Malay and Indian women voters may be a weak point for PR, particularly Indian women
6. PR is likely to retain the seat this by-election provided that GE13 voting patterns remain the same. The choice of candidates by BN and PR may affect the voting patterns due to differences in ethnicity, age, gender and experience. However we have no data to predict the impact of these differences.

For social media statistics on Teluk Intan please check this post.

Top 50 Shared Photos From #PRKBalingian

The following is a list of the most shared photos on Twitter mentioning #PRKBalingian by-election search-terms from March 17th 2014 (Nomination Day) to March 27th 2014. Polling day is tomorrow on March 29th.

These images should give an idea of the campaign styles used by Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Rakyat and their respective supporters and which media was popular during the campaign. Ranking is done by the number of users sharing the URL of the photo, not the number of retweets received.