How to Lose an Election

How to Lose an Election
(A Lay-man Analysis of the Chance of the Opposition Doing Well in a General Election)

Introduction

Two years ago, when my youngest brother reached 21 years old, I asked him to register to vote. To my utter shock and dismay, he replied, “Why bother. My vote is not going to make a different at all. BN is going to win every single election.”

I was stunned and could only stare at him with my mouth opened. My Uncle, a diehard “rocket” man, overheard the conversation, gave my brother a smack on the head and made him go wash out his mouth with soap.

Of course, what my brother said has always been mentioned in passing now and again BUT I thought that my brother’s generation (he’s 12 years younger) would be more optimistic about such things. Instead, he is spewing such pessimistic views and neglected to exercise his democratic rights.

After questioning him further, I gathered that it has been ingrained in the minds of the population that the Opposition has no chance whatsoever to take over the country. Not only that, the chances of them even getting 1/3 majority is slim to nothing. No wonder the younger generation is feeling like they cannot do anything about it.

However, is it even true that the Opposition can never do well? I mean, after May 13, every Chinese have a fear of Opposition doing well and tend not to vote the Opposition, and with the people in the kampungs so brainwashed to vote otherwise and the Indians, trivialized beyond words. Even then, is there no chance at all?!!!

So, instead of listening to hearsay and whatnot, I decided to take a more scientific approach on this matter and perform my own analysis. By doing so, I will answer, once and for all, with empirical evidence, the likelihood of the Opposition doing well in any election.

Data and Assumptions

In order to do the analysis, I decided to use the results of the 2004 General Election results. This is the most current results and will be more reflective of the voting mindsets of the current electorates.

Nevertheless, as I am using past data, certain adjustments and assumptions will have to be made to make the data useful. As such, the following assumptions are made:

1. The number of voters who passed away or no longer want to vote (ie migtrated) since 2004 is assumed to be 25%. Newly registered voters are assumed to be 25%... er… er… Nevermind, let us just assume the voters turnout is the same for each constituency.
   
   
2. All Opposition parties and Independents are grouped as one, under Others. If a person is not likely to vote for BN in an election, it really does not matter whether the person votes for DAP, PKR, PAS or whatnot. Furthermore, at the end of the day, if two opposition parties compete for the same seat, more likely than not, it will split the votes and benefit BN. At the end of the day, all future elections will most likely be a two party fight, BN vs Others.


3. Newly created seats are considered won by BN. I mean, why bother creating new seats if you do not expect to win it… now and forever more…
   


4. Uncontested seats are deemed won by BN for the long run. Come on, if the opposition cannot even bother to fill a half past six candidate at least, those seats have virtually no hope whatsoever.


5. By-election results since 2004 are ignored. It is not easy to track what happened since 2004 as access to information is not readily available but mainly I am too lazy to go round digging for it. For goodness sake, don’t look at me like that… I have a wife and 3 kids to feed… Where got time to do everything lah!
   


6. If the seat is uncontested in 2004 but was contested in 1999. Data from 1999 is used instead.


7. Spoilt votes are assumed to be the same. I mean, if the fella cannot even put an “X” within a white square in 2004, no way in hell the fella is going to get it done right in the future.


8. Above all, the votes for the Opposition are assumed to be constant. Only the votes that moved from BN to the Opposition are analysed. Realistically, how many people you know who votes for the Opposition ever changed and vote BN? None whatsoever but those who votes BN and change to the Opposition… well, that’s what this study is all about.

Data Organisation

As mentioned above, data from the 2004 General Election is used. The main data that was used was based on the voters’ turnout. From the turnout, I was able to isolate the votes for BN and the votes for the Opposition (grouped as Others). The difference between the votes for BN and the votes for “Others” is the majority.

By shifting the votes from BN to the Others at regular intervals (at 2%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35%, 40% and 50%), I will be able to see at what percentage would the swing cause the Others win the seat from BN.

For example, for the seat of Batu (P-115), it will required a swing of around 20% to 25% votes of people voting BN to vote the Others in order for the opposition to win the seat. Whereas, for Kepala Batas (P-41), it will required a massive 35% to 40% swing in votes for the Opposition to win the seat. However, Kota Melaka (P-138) will only require a 2% shift.

Once the data is organized, I aggregated the results and came out with the following summary:

From the above summary, certain trends are quite obvious. Let me re-organise the summary into the following:

Evidently, PAS have done a lot of work in Kelantan and only a mere swing of 2% to 5% is required for PAS to have a majority of Kelantan’s Parliamentary seats. I hate to say this but after running the state for so long, it’s amazing that PAS have such strong support.

Additionally, PAS have also done quite a bit a work in Terengganu and Kedah. Terengganu will only require a 10% to 15% swing in votes and Kedah a 15% to 20% swing for the Opposition to gain majority.

Penang, which have always been a politically “aware” state, will only need a 10% to 15% shift in voters. More urban seats like those in Perak and FT Kuala Lumpur would need a swing of 20% to 25%. Sabah, which has always been upheaval, politically speaking, required the same amount of vote swing.

Seats in Perlis (only 3), FT Labuan (1) and FT Putrajaya (1) are considered negligible. However, it’s now proven that Putrajaya, which is mainly populated with Government servants required the most percentage, a 45% to 50% shift for the opposition to win the seat.

Selangor, the “developed state” (hahaha…), is not that developed politically after all and would need a vote swing of 25% to 30% to obtain a majority of seats. Similarly, Pahang, a state with vast potentials but not much else is being done by BN, required the same level of vote swing.

On the other end of the spectrum, states like Negri Sembilan, Sarawak, Johor and Melaka, which are among the least developed (ie most kampung-like), required a large 35% to 40% swing in voters for the Opposition to get a majority in the state. This clearly shows that BN is doing the right thing of denying progress to these states. Without progress, the population has no idea what is happening around them and will continue to vote BN.

Overall, there is a general need of a 25% shift of voters for the Opposition to win 51% of all the seats and take over the country. Additionally, a shift of 15% to 20% of votes from BN is needed to have 1/3 of the seats and deny BN 2/3 majority.

Now the bad news… To put things into perspective, imagine that the Opposition does very well, a shift of 20% (which is bloody unlikely in any election), and won ALL the seats in Kelantan (14), Penang (13), Terengganu (8), Kedah (15), FT Kuala Lumpur (11), Perak (24) and Sabah (25), a total of 110 seats, there is no way the Opposition will form the Government as BN will still retain 112 seats from the other states.

And you can really, really imagine the likelihood of BN losing ALL the seats in Kelantan, Penang, Terengganu, Kedah, FT Kuala Lumpur, Perak and Sabah… I don’t know about you but I see another May 13 if the above comes true, but the likelihood of Opposition doing that well is near impossible.

Sorry…

Conclusion

I wished I never did the above analysis… I really do. Now that the data is organized and arranged nicely, there is no way to deny that my brother was right. A 25% swing in votes in downright impossible. Most elections in other countries, like the last 2007 election in Australia, Labour won the election with a vote swing of no more than 6%!!!

So, that’s why I named this article, “How to Lose an Election”. Without even going to the polling booth, the Opposition has already LOST the election…

All in all, that leaves me and most people with the 2 following options:

Option 1
Go and do your democratic duty and vote. However, in this case you know the numbers required for the Opposition to win. Only a 25% (haha!) swing needed. That’s like getting 1,162,179 people who currently vote BN to vote the Opposition… Yeah, right…

Nevertheless, you only need 15% to 20% swing to deny BN 2/3 majority. By itself that would be a crashing blow. Although winning the election is downright impossible, there is actually a slim chance of denying BN the 2/3 majority.

Have a quite look of raw data and if your constituency require less than 20% swing for the Opposition to win, go out and vote. Go grab everyone you know and go and vote. Now you may ask me, what if I don’t like DAP? What if I don’t agree with PKR? What if no way in hell am I giving my vote to PAS (I rather die!!!)?

I can tell you basically it does not matter. In 2004 I would shudder and would rather vote BN if the Opposition candidate was from PAS. However, based on the analysis, no way PAS would win and run the country anyway.

Nevertheless, by voting the Opposition, regardless whether it is DAP, PKR, PAS or otherwise, you are sending a message to BN that you don’t like what they are doing now and they better buck up!!! You know why? Even though BN will still run the country no matter how you vote, they can see a drop in the votes for them and a clear percentage swing to the Others if you vote the Opposition. With luck, you may even deny them the 2/3 majority. Now, how great is that!

Option 2
After doing the above analysis, my own personal conclusion is that my brother and his generations are right. Why bother voting? I am going to sleep in and stay at home on March 8. And on Monday, I am going to work as nothing would have changed anyway.

And this is how the Opposition loses an election. Thank you for reading.

Anyway, you don’t have to believe me. I have attached the raw data and you can download it to perform you own analysis. To download the data, please click here.