“Jangan kamu merasa lemah dalam menghadapi lawanmu. Jika kamu menderita sakit, maka sesungguhnya mereka juga menderita sakit sepertimu sedangkan kamu mengharapkan daripada Allah apa yang tidak mereka harapkan” – Surah An-Nisa' : Ayat 104

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Mathematically, it's not a Chinese tsunami

 
Many people are disappointed with the results of GE13.

Even though Pakatan Rakyat won 51 percent of the popular votes, it has only 89 seats against 133 seats of BN.

This is of course because of the gerrymandering that gives rural seats much more say in determining which party would prevail in a general election.

Immediately after the election results were known, I wrote on my Facebook:

"The results showed more of a urban-rural divide. Lim Kit Siang's margin showed that he won not only Chinese votes, but from other races as well. Tian Chua would not have won Batu, a mixed seat with Malay majority, without Malay support...

To prove my point and that PM's assertion about a Chinese tsunami is wrong, we should resort to scientific methods, and do this mathematically."

There are 13.3 million voters for GE13, out of which 29.68 percent or 3.94 million are Chinese Malaysian voters.

Assuming the turnout of the Chinese voters are the same as the general population which is 80 percent, the number of Chinese casting votes would be 3.15 million.

Assuming that 90 percent of the Chinese voted for Pakatan (this is actually improbable), that would be 2.83 million votes.

But Pakatan received more than 5.62 millions votes, which means that even if 90 percent of the Chinese voted for Pakatan, they comprise of only 50 percent of the support that Pakatan receives.

At a more realistic 80 percent Chinese support for the opposition, Pakatan would get 2.5 million votes from the Chinese ethnic group only.

The fact that it received more than 5.62 million total votes means that more than 3.1 million votes were from non-Chinese Malaysians.

The tsunami against BN is more an urban tsunami than putting the blame on any particular ethnic group.

This is clearly reflected that in two of the most urbanised states, Selangor and Penang, BN lost more ground than before.

If not for Sabah and Sarawak, and to a lesser extent Johor and the gerrymandering, BN would have lost this GE13.

source - http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/229377

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