Election - MCA & the Chinese

On the basis of a poll conducted by the Merdeka Center, and summarised in a table below by malaysiakini, it would seem that by the next election the opposition will be in power - mind you, that's kaytee's reading of the survey response as depicted in the table.

I have to admit I am not sure how to interpret the figures. For example if you look at the row for Chinese support of the opposition, it works out to a total of 127% - 62% indicate they will vote for DAP, 23% for PAS (surely this figure has to be ludicrous - sorry, my PAS pals), and 42% for PKR.

Maybe there are more Chinese among the voters than is 'humanly' possible? Could it be that there many Mr Walker's - you know, that bloke with a wolf named Devil ;-)

Hmmm, very unusual for Chinese Mr Walker's

malaysiakini table

Then, if I add up the figures for the bottom row, that for 'national average' up, the total is a staggering 82% support for the 3 opposition parties combined. Wow, the BN with only 12% left will be surely toast.

Before anyone breaks open the champers or goes into political orgasmic ecstasy, kaytee must qualify that I am reading the figures in a probably simplistic manner, being the simple bloke that I am.

OK, here's the damper, to cool you excited people down. The survey also said that PM AAB still has overwhelming support, though that has dropped from an all time high of 91% in November 2004 to 73% in June this year. His support is mainly from the Malays (and predictably the Indians - Samy Vellu must be doing a damn good job).

Leaving Samy and the Indians aside for a while, with the solid support coming from the Malays, don’t expect him to be a PM for all Malaysians during this crucial period leading to the general election.

Assured of favourable indications from the heartland, AAB and UMNO would have believed that the BN, with a virtually guaranteed bundle of seats from Sabah, can form majority government, which is really what matters. This supports my earlier prediction that the election will be held early before Malay support could slip away. Yes, I am looking at Novermber 2007 when the school holidays begin.

This may also explain the DPM playing the 'hard cop' with the not-so-strange declaration of Malaysia as an Islamic State, while AAB played the 'soft cop' in stating that Malaysia is neither a secular nor a theocratic state - see malaysiakini.

Significantly AAB stated that ambiguity in Penang over the weekend, hmmm, perhaps at the beseeching of a MCA. The grapevine has it that the MCA wants more time to prepare for the election, not surprising given the polls whopping 62% support for the DAP.

Now would this figure be reliable, given that in Malaysia the Chinese are quite suspicious of such pre-election survey, and also notorious for playing their voting preferences pretty close to their chest. But nonetheless, whether spurious or otherwise, 62% is still significant and quite frightening for the MCA.

This sets me thinking - could it be that Wong Chun Wai's article in the Star Online titled Some way to go before the polls, which I referred to in my previous posts (just below) predicting an election early next year, had been more of an attempt (by MCA) to indicate to or influence UMNO that would be the better (and preferred) date?

For discussions on why November elections, see my earlier posts:

(1) KTemoc predicts November General Election
(2) November General Elections - More Indications

OK, so we still come to the Chinese, the ethnic group which may (or may not) pull a few surprises a la 1969.

The Chinese, having realised that AAB isn’t afterall the reincarnation of Judge Bao Gong that MCA had in 2004 averred him to be, are now less enchanted with the PM and his leadership. Only a shocking 8% Chinese believe he has kept his 2004 promise - hardly Bao Gong material.

Right, but more importantly, what about the '3 bowls of rice'.

The survey also indicates that the 3 major ethnic groups, by 45% Indians, 44% Chinese and 24% Malays, agreed that the “the problems of the sluggish Malaysian economy can be addressed if there were more leaders from the opposition.”

This is great news for the 3 main opposition parties. But I predict that notwithstanding this polled support for the opposition, the Chinese will apply the Penangites' formula of sending the DAP to federal parliament to make noise, while voting the BN in at home to ensure favourable funding for state development. Oh, did I leave out PKR? Sorry, just lump it together with the DAP then.

According to the malaysiakini table, it would appear that PKR with 31% support has a slight overall lead ahead of the DAP (30%) and PAS (27%). This is actually the most interesting part of the statistics.

The PKR’s 31% support versus the DAP’s 30%, with the first having a fairly balanced support across the 3 main ethnic groups (25%, 42%, 26% - you don’t need me to tell you which is who, do you?) while the 2nd (DAP) enjoys a spread of 8%, 62% and 33% support, seems to indicate a PKR renaissance of 1999.

It’ll be interesting to see how the PKR and DAP can come to some amicable arrangement sharing out the seats to avoid split votes among the opposition parties. Remember Taiping, which means double bad news for poor marginalised Kayveas.

But as I mentioned, in Malaysia stats are stats only, with the real figures only known on post-poll counting. That would be the ultimate survey!